Morning Glory Nests.

I have a wise old friend who warned me against planting Morning Glory.
'But it's so pretty!' I argued... 'And, it grows so wonderfully fast!' I pleaded. I was wanting to plant a vine that would grow over our fence and make our yard look like a jungle of green. As is usually the case with me, I wanted this curtain of green immediately!
'Donni,' he sighed, 'You will work hard for your impatience.'

And, yes I have! I planted Morning Glory, of course, and soon had a wonderful jungle for a back yard. It is so very pretty... deep green leaves, wonderful purple trumpet flowers that seem to change color every time I look at them and enchanting new tendrils that curl and spiral. But, alas, it is like the fabled vine that grew around Sleeping Beauties castle. It grows thicker and thicker, sends down roots and starts new vines all on it's own. It invades everywhere and covers everything. The one vine I planted has now become countless many. It has choked my roses to death, almost destroyed my passion fruit and is having a good attempt at strangling the banana trees. Every couple of months, we have to be ruthless with it as we free our other plants.

Today was Morning Glory Control Day. Morning Glory Control Day has become synonymous with Nest Making Day as we collect the morning glory clippings to make nests. So, although it's a day of hard work for me, my children whoop enthusiastically as nest making is on of their very favorite Spring activities.

We collect a big bunch of Morning Glory vine and 'de-leaf' each tendril.

To form the base of the nest, we take a few strands of vine and twist them around each other.

And then, we make our nest bigger and bigger by threading pieces of vine through it... around and around, filling in holes as we see them.

It's just like sewing, Kitty exclaimed!









Voila! Our Morning Glory nests are made.

We leave them in an airy place to dry out and play with them for many, many months. We make big ones and small ones, we add a few little robins eggs, some guinea fowl feathers, moss, wool... whatever we have on hand to make them as enchanting as possible.

Here is a link to last years Morning Glory Control Day where we rediscovered our dear printers tray.

Happy Spring,
Blessings and magic to you,
Donni