The Patio Experiment

The eastern side of my patio: morning glories are beginning to bloom, and the genovese basil with some parleys (not seen in this photo) are flourishing.  I love adding basil when I cook (ahem... err, experiment?) italian and last year I had gotten tired of paying $3.99 a bunch that won't even last a week in my fridge that I got some seeds and planted it in a pot and it grew!  So I was more ambitious this year (with the help of green-thumbed B who engineered the morning glories wall) and got two longer pots and planted basil, parsley, sage, thyme, rosemary and mint (only the rosemary became a victim of my brown thumb).

I have not really seen morning glories in full bloom and I was surprised to learn that they can produce flowers for up to 300/day (OK, I have a habit of fast reading some stuff and then it sticks in my head, and sometimes I don't care if I don't get the facts right, so I admit this is one of them).  What I haven't researched on is how long do the flowers last -- since the flowers (we had counted 4 so far) are now all unaccounted for (we are thinking there's a morning glory robber that has wings...).

Now I wonder how best to care for these while I'm on my european junket?

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Plants on my deck -- July 8, 2011:  the morning glories so far has shown two different colors (blue and purple).  The basil is ready for trimming.