Michelle

I've never heard of anyone insulating containers from the inside as you're doing, but let us know if it works. Some people paint or cover the containers with something reflective of heat and light both. Another way to insulate containers from the outside is to build an attractive light-colored wooden "box" around it. I've no doubt you already know those things though and are trying something new. :-)

I'd also elevate the containers on something that doesn't conduct heat to the container from the concrete below.

I am a reptile breeder and sale reptile supplies. I beleive the product your using is Reflectix. It will intensify the heat in the pot but it will also increase the humidity... I would say u you would be bett off without it..

-- I had MG's and MF's in them last year - the MG's did OK, but the MF's never bloomed. (?) --

Unfortunately this is fairly common in our zone and isn't necessarily related to the temps in the pots.

Morning Glories are annuals so they complete their lifecycle in one year. Grow, flower, seed.

Moonflowers on the other hand, are perennials. As such they, like many perennials, are in no hurry to do anything other than grow thier first year. To get them to flower requires time. That is something we often don't have enough of in our zone.

We can increase the odds of getting blooms by stressing the plant. Stressing the plant 'persuades' it into thinking it may not survive another year so it needs to hurry up and reproduce. One way to do this is to never fertilize at all, not even in a container. If you feel you must fertilize do so when the plant is young and small and give it a low dose. You could just amend the planting mix with a small amount of compost which would provide a small amount of nutrients and then don't give any further feedings. Once the vine is fairly large, allow the potting mix to go as dry as you can. When you start to see leaves getting droopy or wilty, water. Not before. The lack of food and water, with some luck, will hurry the MF along into flowering as a means of species survival. It 'knows' it is going to die, so it starts making babies to carry on.

A few things that I've done over the years may give you some ideas. First, like Annie suggested, elevate your pots off of the concrete to allow air flow under your containers. You can use anything from pot feet, to a few well place large rocks, to bricks. I also group a bunch of planted pots together.

You can wrap bamboo 'sheets' around the grouping, or even a single pot. This may sound tacky but one year I wrapped some old blinds around a bunch of plants and covered with ton of Spanish moss to hide the top of the pots and the top edge of the blinds. It actually looked really good, especially since I tied raffia around the blinds in two places and the Spanish moss draping down in some spots.

I've also put planted pots into huge pots and stuffed between the two pots with crushed plastic bottles and/or peanuts (the kind that don't melt when wet).

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Jenna

Another possibility is double-potting. You put the pot with the plant in it into a larger sized pot and add dirt or ?? between the two and at the bottom.

The added dirt acts as an insulator.

Of course, this might not be possible if the pots are large and too heavy to heft around.

Just to followup - the Reflextix inside the container seems to have done no harm. I have a ton of stuff growing in it, even near the edge that used to be too hot/dry for anything to grow. There is a hops vine in the middle, some planted sunflowers, some volunteer sunflowers (from feeding birds over the winter), nasturtium, cardinal climber...

And it's been very hot and windy weather. I am drip watering all my containers twice a day for a few minutes, and that plus the insulation seems to help LOADS with even soil moisture and temperature throughout the container.

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Cheers!
Michelle