The Mornin' Glories Made Me Do It

Last week I mentioned having planted some morning glory seeds. This is an amusing development as, just a few feet away from where I placed them, I spend a good portion of my time trying to hold wild morning glories at bay. In fact, we determined the site of our Victory Garden based upon the fact that if we were going to clear a bit of land for the raised bed, why not put it on top of the wild glories and try to choke them out with soil and cultivated plants. 

Bearing in mind their tenacity, I knew well and good that the little vines would poke their way into the veg bed. And they have. Truth be told, it doesn't bother me all that much. I just pull them...though I may rethink that tactic (more on that in a moment). And there's one blooming in our nearby wildflower meadow amid the now fading wild coreopsis and native lantana. The wild glories are rather pretty...my mom loves them...but they are definitely pesky.

On a whim, I just looked up wild morning glories on Google and found a charming New York Times story ("Weeds Made His Crop; Gardener Finds Wild Morning Glory a Disguised Blessing")  from 2 June 1918. The date jumped out of course, not only for the month but also for the year...the start of America's involvement in WWI, just as our first war gardens were coming along. I couldn't resist probing further. Lo and behold, the first sentence:

The observant war gardener learns all about nature, human and otherwise. [emphasis mine]

Serendipity rides again. I start off looking up morning glories...end up right back in  war gardens.

You can read the whole story online (and there you'll discover why I plan to chop the wild morning glory around my VG from now on), but the first bit is too precious not to reproduce:

...the Brooklyn man who put up a neatly printed sign, reading:

For Sale--At a bargain, a few choice wild Morning Glory roots; all hardy and guaranteed to grow in any garden soil.

found that Barnum was right about a sucker being born every minute. He also learned that it pays to advertise and that gardeners in their novitiate are ready to buy anything and plant anything that is guaranteed or even well spoken of. Things almost as little to be desired as wild morning glory are advertised and seriously bought and planted. But wild morning glory is not so bad if one knows what to do about it and studies its ways, and a study of its ways will prove most entertaining.

Not only did I find this bit amusing, it led me into the New York Times' archives in search of other war garden themed stories. For your pleasure, here's a small selection (see below). 

And if anyone asks why you're poking around in archives on a (presumably) fine summer's day...blame the morning glories. They're resilient, after all.

For Further Exploration:

• Grow Vegetables at Flower Show; George Gould War Garden One of the Features at Annual Exhibit's Opening (15 March 1918) - Includes a description of a demonstration right down to the exact variety of plants used.

• War Garden Seeds Scarce and Costly; Standard Varieties Up from 50 to 200 Per Cent. Above Last Year's Quotations (27 January 1918) - I loved this quote, by an unnamed gardener frustrated with the escalating cost of seed: "I want to plant a war garden for patriotism, pleasure, profit and provender."

• Flowers a Boon of War; Father's Backyard Garden Puts Mother to Work on the Lawn (20 October 1918) - Push past the gender role issues in the header, and there's a bit of charm to this account of how flower gardens began to pop up alongside veg beds.