You remember the Morning Glory competition between myself and my mum?

Hers were incredibly slow to germinate, so I showed her how it's done. As an aside, I wonder why people say that MGs might need help in germinating? As in, they need to be rubbed with sandpaper, and then soaked for a few days. Really? I just put a seed in a pot of moist compost, sprinkle a bit of compost on the top, then cover with a freezer bag until it germinates, which will be around 3 days, maybe 4.

Anyway, I planted a Heavenly Blue, and my mum was trying to grow 2. Since she left hers out in the cold and they ended up shrivelled, I got a pack of Early Call and planted one of those, too. That's the one in the picture above. Anyway, the both of them were doing really well (attracting fruit flies into my room, too) and since they were growing all over my desk, and the weather had warmed up, I planted them out.

V bad idea. The slugs! Oh my gosh, the slugs were absolutely rabid this year. My Heavenly Blue didn't make it 🙁

The Early Call was hanging on by the skin of its teeth, wherever that stupid saying came from. And made it. I'm sorry to say I had to resort to using the nasty toxic slug pellets around it, because the local B&Q no longer sells the Growing Success ones. Worst vegan ever, I know. I did cover it with mesh to protect the birds, although they had mealworms at that time anyway (PS they had two broods, and Mrs Tubbie ended up completely bald!).

Anyway, since the remaining MG had only a few shreds of leaf left, I did give it a half-strength dilution of MiracleGro, just to help it regrow its leaves, and only once, I think.

Okay, so the Early Call was doing nicely:

So far, so good. I germinated another Early Call to make up for the late Heavenly Blue.

Doing well. Only, here is the problem:

What's wrong with that?

Well that is not actually my plant.

That is my mum's straggly Heavenly Blue that is flowering. Mine are growing like crazy, they have taken over most of the trellising and are strangling the passionflower (which keeps getting yellow leaves, and I don't know why 🙁 ) but not a single bud to be seen. So what I'm going to try now is to give them potassium phosphate and see if I can get some blooms before the frosts kick in. Sigh. My mum definitely won this round.