Pale of color and small of stature, the blooms of this wild morning glory aren’t nearly as eye-catching and attention-getting as their more hybridized relatives, but what they lack in impact they make up for in tenacious spunk. These unassuming charmers can take the smallest sidewalk crack in the most hospitable downtown areas and turn them into a tropical-feeling paradise in a single summer season, running rampant over concrete and chain-link fences and transforming them into spaces of unexpected beauty. I still recall a particular plant that had worked its way up twenty feet of ugly fencing in downtown Chicago, valiantly blooming in the midst of a deadly heatwave.
I admire that sort of performance, the way they own their wildness and bloom their heads off in the name of survival. I also admire anything that does its best to bring about beauty in unlikely places.
