Moon flower

A friend from work was out walking one day and spotted a landscaping company thinning some moon flowers so she stopped to ask if she could have the shoots they were throwing away!  They said yes, so she grabbed a handful and came back to work, wrapped them in wet paper towels and stuck them in  a bag.  She happened to stop me in the hall to ask if I wanted some.  Sure I told her! 
I brought home these 2 little shoots, that were kind of puny by the end of the day.  Not knowing a thing about them or how they would grow, or how much room they would need, I stuck them in the ground.  I was afraid they would die if I waited any longer!  So I put them in the ground between the basil and the carrots.  They grew and grew and grew.  As they got bigger I wondered if I had made a mistake in my choice of placement!  I googled them and found that they prefer to be trellised as they will grow very tall! 

Well crap, perhaps I should have googled before planting?  At any rate, I didn't trellis so my plant is more like a bush.  But that's ok!  They are called moon flowers because they bloom at dusk and through the night. And they smell fantastic!

For the longest time I didn't have any flower blooms, but a couple weeks ago, I spotted 2 small buds.  Over the last couple weeks, they got bigger and bigger, about 6 inches long.  I kept going outside checking the buds at least once a night, sometimes twice because I didn't want to miss the bloom! This weekend was the right time and they opened up into these beautiful flowers!

I had been taking pictures almost everyday to catch the progression of the bloom, but then my memory card ate the pictures.... So this is all I got! 

I am so ridiculously proud of these 2 blooms!  A little over protective the last couple days!  But last night I noticed that there are at least a dozen more buds forming!! 













This bloom has a little cricket in there!