PlantFiles: Lavender Moonvine
Ipomoea turbinata

This vine has reseeded itself for me for 5 years. With each succeeding year, it has climbed further. At the end of Sept 2003, it had reached past my second floor windows- (I draped kite string out the top of my second floor windows to the ground).** Note**- I find the more you neglect this vine, the more blooms.Fertilizing gives vigorous foliage growth.
If left to reseed itself, be diligent about removing stray vines, they WILL take over.

A rather fast grower, vines up to around 8 feet. Does not do alot of spreading, flowers beautiful lavender in color with a little shade given, however, in full sun, the color of the bloom leans more toward a washed out pink color. Blooms last all day on an overcast day, usually blooming near evening and gone by mid morning, unless like I said, a cloudy or overcast day where they will remain open all day long.

I have not grown this plant, but seedpicker asked me if I knew anything about a blue moonflower. In Flowers by Pizzetti and Cocker (1968), a "purplish" moonflower, "...not more than 3" in diameter...", is mentioned, called Calonyction muricatum G. don. In Hortus III (1976), the name has changed to Ipomoea muricata. From the image in this database, it looks like the purple changes to a bluish pink as it ages.

Seedpicker grows I. muricata (syn. I. turbinata) and says it has no fragrance and that this is not the "blue moonflower" she is looking for. The search is still on. The pursuit continues on ErickMN's Moonflower Vine Question thread, which began 8/6/2004 in the Vines and Climbers forum.

As to origin of I. muricata, Hortus III says, "Probably native to American tropics; now escaped from cultivation in the tropics of both hemispheres."

A really nice shade of "pink" I have found, moreso than purple. I also grow Ipomoea turbinata (lavender moonvine) and it is definitely more of a purple than this one. This one is growing up 25 plus feet this year at my place. Seedpods are enormous and many. Seeds are black!

Very fast growing vine with profuse blooms. Does best in my area in partial shade, but will grow in full sun. My vines got easily 15' long! Lots of seed pods and easy to harvest! Beautiful flowers that look more like a light or dusky pink or perhaps lilac color. The hawkmoths LOVED them!

The USDA has this plant listed as a noxious weed for the following states. It's even prohibited in Arizona.

Arizona:
Ipomoea L.
morning glory Prohibited noxious weed
Arkansas:
Calonyction muricatum G.Don
moonflower Noxious weed
Ipomoea L.
morning glory Noxious weed
South Carolina:
Calonyction muricatum G.Don
purple moonflower Plant pest

This vine gets huge, not a lot of flowers at one time, but reseeds everywhere and is a spider mite magnet.

A friend sent me a packet of seeds from her garden last year. She knew I was after moonflower vines. Oops, she got her seeds mixed up.

My first four blooms just opened this afternoon and they're Ipomoea turbinata, not the regular white moonflowers. Luckily, I planted some *real* white moonflowers at the end of the patio, from a seed packet I bought at the store. But darn it, I wanted white ones where I sit at night.

Anyway, the seeds look just like moonflower seeds, and nicking & soaking them overnight will result in their plumping up and almost doubling in size. Then they're ready to plant. I started these seeds the first or second week of May, and the first flowers just opened today, July 19. The germination times can vary quite a bit though. Most came up the first week, some a few weeks later, and one just came up the other day.

I was wondering what the little thorns all over the stems were for. They're too soft for protection. Then I noticed one of these I'd planted at the base of a tree and those soft "thorns" are perfect for helping the vine get a grip on a tree trunk which is too thick for it to quickly wind itself around.

Well, that's my theory anyway.

I'm so glad I got to try this one. I planted one plant with 2 white moonvines at the bottom of my front porch railing. The flowers are small, but pretty. Also, there is no scent to them, which was a bit of a disappointment to me, but the color is very pretty. Seeds are black (or at least a very dark brown), and look like small coffee beans when completely dried. If you plant these with the white ones, at least it's easy to tell the two apart when you collect them! Easy to start, easy to grow and would recommend to anyone who loves lavender!