If at first you don't succeed...

This is my dream arbor, pictured in the wonderful gardening book The American Horticultural Society Flower Finder. Miniature pumpkin vines grow up the sides and twirl around morning glory vines, so the arbor is a mass of flowers and tiny dangling pumpkins. Unlike most of my gardening fantasies, I felt this one was actually achievable. One Sunday afternoon several years ago, my husband and I gathered limbs and twigs and built a rustic arbor. I planted morning glories and pumpkins. The morning glories never reached the top of the arbor. The pumpkins were an off-and-on affair, until we got a really bad case of squash borers and gave up on them for a couple of years. By this time, of course, our rustic arbor had begun to rot and totter, and so at the end of last summer, I took it apart. You know what happened, don't you, now that I don't have an arbor?

The morning glories, self-sown, are spectacular. They've got nothing else to cling to, so they're draped around the coneflowers.

And I threw the pumpkins that I bought last year into the compost pile, and now I have an astonishing  crop of Jack-Be-Little pumpkins growing. The vines are climbing right up the sides of the compost bin. Just like they were supposed to grow up the side of my arbor. Which, of course, no longer exists.

As baseball fans, and gardeners, are fond of saying:  Wait 'til next year.

Comments

[Lori]

Isn't that the way it always goes!?! Beautiful Glories and Pumpkins though!

[Connie]

Now I know the secret to gardening, just give up and mother nature will surprise you. I've been trying too hard and I always fall a little short of my garden vision. Enjoy your surpises.

[Ceekay]

Ditto what Lori said....that is too funny...I say let it grow where it wants....if you put the arbor back...they will disappear again!

[Beth Leintz]

However your garden grows- I think it looks pretty!

[kim]

I'm glad to know other people have these problems too. A few years ago I saw a picture in a catalog of an arbor with beautiful pink roses growing all around it. I ordered the exact arbor and planted the exact roses. They bloomed for a short while and then had wild shoots sticking up every which way. It was a full time job trying to keep it pruned. I finally had to rip them out and soon after the arbor rusted out and had to be trashed.
Anyhow, your morning glories and pumpkins look beautiful right where they are.

[kim]

I'm glad to know other people have these problems too. A few years ago I saw a picture in a catalog of an arbor with beautiful pink roses growing all around it. I ordered the exact arbor and planted the exact roses. They bloomed for a short while and then had wild shoots sticking up every which way. It was a full time job trying to keep it pruned. I finally had to rip them out and soon after the arbor rusted out and had to be trashed.
Anyhow, your morning glories and pumpkins look beautiful right where they are.

[suzy]

Mother Nature can be so serendipitous! xo, suzy

[Robin~Thrifty Miss Priss]

I can't believe you built your own from twigs! How cool is that! Don't you just love nature and the little "volunteers" you find here and there? I do agree though..they look darling right where they are!

[LiLi M.]

I think that is what gardening is all about; trying to put plants that are perfectly happy at one spot to another and getting rid of that one specie that covers up everything and trying to grow that other specie that is overwhelmed by the first. Reading my definition it's a kind of selftorturing activity :-D. That's why my husband is doing this (of course I'm walking in the garden deciding which plant has to go and which one can stay).

I love your pumpkins, that morning glory is beautiful, but it definitely is a relative of a weed in white that I'm trying to get rid of but keeps on visiting us from our neighbours, who are neglecting their garden. So that gives me bad vibes.
Love your garden. We want more!!!

[Carmen @ Thifty Cottage Dreams]

I think your morning glories and pumpkins are beautiful! Too bad that my pumpkins and cantaloupes that were in my compost were eaten by deer!

[Susan]

Wow, they are just beautiful! Maybe you can try the arbor again next year :) Hope you are well.
xo

[The Apron Queen]

Your morning glories are stunning. Whether they're in an arbor or not!

[Lena]

I love those Morning Glories! They are a favorite flower of mine, and yours are spectacular. Everything looks really lovely.

[susan]

typical! it just goes to show you, you should have neglected them in the first place.