The Moon Flower produces a snow-white bloom, 4" to 6" across.... and blooms only at night! This is a climbing vine plant, so be sure to have something for it to climb on! Moon Flowers are "annuals". They like lots of sunshine and warm summer nights. They die quickly, even after only light frost.
Starting Moon Flower Seeds
Moon Flower seeds should be started about the end of March to the middle of April... if you live in Pennsylvania. Plan on setting the new plants outside about the middle of May to be sure of avoiding a late frost. Obviously, if the weather is warm, you can set them out earlier. I usually leave my plants in little peat-pots so I can bring them in at night during April.
Moon Flower seeds are about the size of a cherry pit and just about as hard. My experience has been that if I just plant them in either the ground or in starter peat-pots, the seeds rot long before they germinate and grow. So, I have devised this method of getting them started. I now get nearly 100% germination as you can see from the photos.
I cut a paper towel and laid a large, square, section of it in a saucer.
Next, I scattered the Moon Flower seeds over the paper towel.
Finally, I covered the whole thing with another large square of paper towel and wet it all under the faucet in the sink. Then, I placed the saucer in the window sill.
Each day, I added a little water to the saucer to replace what had evaporated.
After a few days, the seeds began to sprout. I kept adding water to the saucer as the seeds began to grow a little.
As soon as I thought they were strong enough, I placed each little seedling in a tiny little starter peat-pot all by itself and sprinkled a little potting soil over it to just barely cover it.
Then, I sat the starter peat-pot into a shallow tray containing about an inch of water and sat the whole thing out in the sunshine. The water in the tray quickly migrated up into the peat starter-pot and kept it nice and wet. After a few days, the little seedlings were popping up and beginning to grow.
As soon as the seedlings were about 3" high, I sat the little starter peat-pots out in the soil and kept them well watered for about 2 weeks. By then, the little Moon Flower plants were growing nicely.
I believe this method keeps the seeds just wet enough to allow them to germinate without keeping them so wet as to cause the natural bacteria to rot them.
I think that the next time I do this I will scarify the seeds much as you do with lotus seeds. You use a small metal file or a knife or a Dremel tool and cut a tiny little notch through the hard outer shell of the seed to allow moisture to get inside more rapidly and start the germination process more rapidly. Although nearly all of my seeds germinated (see the photos), many of them never made it to the point of actually putting out leaves because the hard shell was just too much for the weak little seedling to over come.
Moon Flower vines can grow to 10' high or more and will bloom all summer... at night.