Morning glories climb by twining. Their stems twist continuously and they spiral around a trellis or other support when they contact it. The support must be fairly narrow, so it is unlikely morning glories could climb a tree. Here is a VIDEO.

That's a pretty cool video, thanks! I don't actually have a narrow trellis like that other than the deck banister, though, so I'm gonna have to figure out some sort of alternative :-/

just weed them out..

you claim you now have a million seeds from last year.. and your best idea is to spread them further around your yard .. for what.. another TWO million next year ...

save two plants if you wish.. destroy the rest ...

ken

As well as not being able to twine don’t they need full sun? I would have thought trees would cast shade.

@floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK, the trees I was envisioning are American Holly on the Western side of the property, with direct sun from dawn until around 2pm. I was imagining planting these at the base so that they would get direct sun until at least noon, then dappled sun through the tree they're under for a few more hours after that.

I was hoping that they would climb the trunk, then spread out over limbs in search of sun... resulting, of course, in pretty flowers all over the tree! But I guess not, if it won't climb the tree :-(

I might try it anyway, since I have so much excess, and tie twine or something to the nearest limb so that it can climb that twine.

you claim you now have a million seeds from last year.. and your best idea is to spread them further around your yard .. for what.. another TWO million next year ...

Haha, @ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5, I think you weren't a big fan of MGs when we talked about it last year, either! LOL

I ended up not liking them on my deck banisters because it was MUCH thicker than I'd anticipated! You couldn't rest your arm on the banister, and it blocked my view of the rest of the garden. But non-flowering evergreen trees around the perimeter of the property wouldn't have the same problems.

One way to find out.

Jason, take a moment to think through your idea of planting morning glory seedlings at the base of American holly trees. The thought makes me shudder as a former grower of many varieties of holly. How are you going to remove the dead morning glory vines in the fall which have secured themselves within those very prickly holly leaves? From a practical and maintenance perspective, this is a bad idea. Think about pulling spring sprouting morning glory seedlings from under a mature holly that has shed its barbed dead leaves.

Please stop stumbling around making questionable decisions and contact the consultant I suggested to meet with you. It will save you time, money and provide useful direction.

String trimmer would easily take care of MG seedlings.