Growing the Lanternwild: Three Vines, Three Personalities, and Several Minor Disasters

When I last left off with my attempt to grow pieces of the Lanternwild in real life, my little collection of vines was still very much in its awkward baby stage. Two of my morning glories had just been moved into larger planters, one of them promptly responded to the experience by collapsing like I had personally betrayed her, and my white moonflower was recovering from snapping her stem and spending her days strapped to a bamboo skewer in a makeshift plant splint.

At the time, I don’t think I had even properly introduced them by name yet.

That has changed.

They have names now.

They also have trellises, opinions, surprisingly distinct personalities, and a remarkable talent for making very simple gardening decisions considerably more complicated than they need to be.

So, let me properly introduce Big Blue, Bogstar, and Moonflower.

Big Blue: The Plant That Took Three Sellers to Obtain

Big Blue’s story actually started long before I had a plant. The original seeds I wanted were being sold under the name “Giant Blue Moonflower.” I loved the giant blue flowers immediately, and somewhere along the way the plant simply became Big Blue in my head.

There was just one small problem. The seeds never arrived. So I ordered them again. They still never arrived.

At that point I started trying to figure out what plant I had actually been attempting to buy, because “Giant Blue Moonflower” was clearly not helping me very much. That search sent me to a second seller, and into an entirely separate botanical side quest involving a packet of mystery seeds that may have been evening primrose.

Those never germinated.

I have since replaced them with seeds that are, mercifully, definitely common evening primrose, although I still haven’t planted those yet.

Meanwhile, Big Blue herself eventually had to come from a third seller.

After all of that, the correct seeds finally reached me. Apparently merely acquiring Big Blue was going to be the first test.

Once she was growing, she immediately started developing a personality.

At one point she lost an entire leaf, which naturally made me worry that something was going wrong.

She disagreed.

She kept growing.

Eventually she found the back side of her trellis and wrapped herself around it, which was the first moment I realized she actually understood what this enormous green structure surrounding her was supposed to be for.

Then things got even funnier. The vine on the front right side caught the trellis and began climbing upward like she had been doing it her entire life.

The vine on the front left apparently looked at this and decided that “growing up” sounded overrated. It grew downward instead.

For a while, Big Blue was essentially growing correctly on one side while the other runner entered its rebellious teenage phase. Eventually, however, the left runner seems to have realized that it had made a tactical error.

It turned around.

It is now growing upward too.

So Big Blue has officially learned that sometimes growing up is unavoidable. I’m very proud of her.

Bogstar: A Lanternwild Mystery in Real Life

Bogstar has probably the most appropriately Lanternwild origin story of the three, because I still don’t actually know what flower she is going to produce. Originally, I found a morning glory with flowers I absolutely loved. I wanted to grow it, but the seller wouldn’t ship to my area. So I found another seller offering a very similar flower and ordered those instead.

At some point during that process, I designed Bogstar’s Recovered Notes page using the flowers from that second listing as my reference. In other words, the Lanternwild version of Bogstar was already taking shape based on the plant I believed I was going to grow.

Then the seeds arrived, and the picture on the packet was of the original flower. Not the second one.

So now I have absolutely no idea which one I actually planted. Which feels extremely appropriate for a plant associated with the Lanternwild. Bogstar herself is apparently keeping the answer secret until she blooms.

Her growth habits were equally mysterious at first. While Big Blue was beginning to investigate her trellis, Bogstar seemed determined to remain on the ground. I positioned vines near supports. I gave her opportunities. I showed her, metaphorically speaking, exactly where she was supposed to go.

She declined.

And then, completely on her own schedule, she caught it.

Once she finally decided that climbing was acceptable, she apparently felt the need to make up for lost time.

Within days she was heading rapidly upward, wrapping herself around the support and climbing higher and higher as though the previous period of trellis refusal had never happened.

Apparently she was never confused. She was simply considering her options.

Moonflower: The Drama Queen

And then there is Moonflower. Moonflower has had enough plot developments for an entire blog post by herself.

Her problems began early. One of her sisters emerged from the soil still wearing her seed coat like a little helmet and apparently decided she was perfectly happy to keep it. Eventually I had to help remove it. Unfortunately, she had worn it for so long that the very end of the trapped leaf was damaged in the process.

Apparently the moonflowers had collectively decided from germination that they were going to keep me busy.

Moonflower herself took things considerably further when her stem snapped. Rather than give up on her, I straightened the damaged section, placed a bamboo skewer alongside it, and wrapped the break into what became her little plant splint.

And somehow…it worked. She kept growing. In fact, she grew well enough that the tiny pot she had started in eventually became a problem of its own.

I learned this when she suddenly collapsed.

Not slowly.

Not subtly.

She went from “plant” to Victorian woman receiving devastating correspondence.

I watered her. She resurrected.

At that point it became increasingly obvious that she was simply becoming too large for the amount of soil in her little pot and was drinking through the available water faster than I expected.

So Moonflower finally received an upgrade. A much larger metal planter, plenty of fresh soil, and significantly more room for her roots. I kept the splint on during the move because the last thing I wanted to do was successfully heal a snapped vine only to break it again while repotting.

Naturally, Moonflower responded to her beautiful new estate by wilting dramatically again.

Because of course she did.

But this time something else happened on the very same day:

she caught her trellis.

After everything she had been through, I redirected her long searching vine so that it rested against the support. Apparently that was all the explanation she needed. She wrapped herself around it like she had known what a trellis was from birth. No hesitation. No Bogstar-style philosophical debate.

Just:

Oh. This is mine.

And then Tropical Storm Rachel arrived.

After several days of rain, Moonflower’s new, much larger pot became extremely wet. Her upper growth still looked good, but several of her older lower leaves wilted again.

At this point I was beginning to accept that dramatic wilting may simply be part of Moonflower’s personality.

I left her alone to dry out. I also finally removed her splint. The repaired stem held itself up perfectly well, and then, within about five hours, the wilted lower leaves perked back up too.

I did nothing. She simply decided she was finished being dramatic for the afternoon.

For now.

Moonflower has now survived a snapped stem, plant surgery, repeated drought-induced fainting spells, a major repot, tropical-storm rain, splint removal, and the discovery of her trellis.

She is doing extremely well.

She would also like everyone to understand that everything is an emergency.

And honestly? I adore her.

Growing the Lanternwild

The funniest part of this experiment is that I originally started growing these plants because I wanted living references for the Lanternwild. Instead, they have gradually become little characters of their own. Big Blue required three sellers just to make it into my hands, briefly rejected the concept of upward growth, and eventually corrected herself. Bogstar is literally a botanical mystery whose identity probably won’t be revealed until she blooms. Moonflower has turned surviving minor inconveniences into a performance art.

And there are still more plants coming.

My mystery suspected-evening-primrose seeds never germinated, so I now have a fresh packet of confirmed common evening primrose waiting to be planted.

Becca has also announced that she wants to make a fairy house. When she wondered where she could possibly put it, I suggested Moonflower’s enormous new planter.

After all, she’s a drama queen. I think she’d appreciate having fairies.

Becca smirked.

So I have a feeling Moonflower may be getting tenants.

And somehow, I think this little garden is only going to get stranger from here. 🌙🌿