Lets Talk About Vines Today

As our gardening skills have progressed, Jamie and I have become fond of vines. We’ve started to get a pretty good collection. There is still a lot of trial and error going on in our garden and we are learning as we go along. Some of the vines we decided to grow this year we will keep and some of them we will remove.

This first vine is a Purple Hyacinth. I’m sure everyone out there has seen this one before. We started this vine from seed and to begin with it was a major disappointment. We petted and pampered it all summer and it just sat there pretty much doing nothing. August came along and I was just about ready to snatch them all up and put them into the trash and just as if they had heard those very words they hit a growth spurt. They’ve been blooming like crazy ever since. The Purple Hyacinth Vine will most definitely be a keeper next year.

Purple Hyacinth Vine

This next flower is a bloom from a Cypress Vine. This vine is easy to grow and the humming birds absolutely love it. They are so easy to grow, as a matter of fact; I’ve been trying to get rid of this vine for over ten years. If I am fortunate enough to get rid of it, never again will it be purposely planted in our garden. A very, very pretty vine, but not one I care to have any longer.

Cypress Vine

The next photo is a picture of a Cardinal Vine bloom or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I haven’t been able to find a single picture of this vine online. The leaves are trident shaped and do not look like the other pictures I’ve seen. You can barely make them out in the back ground of the photo. The only reason this vine is still in the garden is because it grew while my back was injured and I wasn’t able to pull it up. Now that Jamie has seen it, he refuses to let me get rid of it or the cypress vine. The ones that have grown can stay, but I will remove everyone that I can next year. Beautiful flowers, but this one gets the thumbs down from me.

Cardinal Vine

This is clematis ‘Galore’. It’s a wonderful shade of purple and I love it! It is one of five very sick clematis that Jamie and I bought on clearance. We chopped it down to the base and it has rewarded us with new growth and blooms. It and the other four we bought are still in the pots we bought them in. It is a definite keeper, but the big question is where are we going to put it?

'Galore'

‘Sugar Candy’ is another one the lovely clematis we purchased that seems to benefit well from a good haircut. Alas, it has yet to find a home either. That sounds like a good project for this coming weekend. It’s not that we don’t have plenty of fences to plant them on, but if we do that they may fall victim to the weed whacker or a careless push with the lawn mower. They need to be in a bed somewhere.

'Sugar Candy'

‘Tangerine Beauty’ cross vine is another addition to the mix this year. We have two of these planted on each side of one of the arbors. It hasn’t bloomed yet, but it is filling in very nicely.

'Tangerine Beauty'

This sky vine, or Blue Orchid vine as it is sometimes called, was a gift from our friend Carol. She dug it up from her yard and gave it to us the same weekend we also bought one from a flea market. It has beautiful bluish/purple colored blooms. This is most certainly a keeper. The one we bought from the lady at the flea market has slightly larger leaves that are a different color of green. It’s very possible we have two different kinds, but I will not know for certain until the other one blooms.

Blue Orchid Vine

To me, the buds are equally as beautiful as the actual blooms.

We recently started to work on a new bed by the driveway this past weekend. It was my original intentions to have that bed competed by now. The past eight weeks I’ve been unable to do anything in the yard so we are falling behind schedule. ‘Mardi Gras’ is one of two honey suckle vines to planted on a split rail fence that will go to the rear of that bed. It has a nice frilly flower that reminds me of the ones that use to grow wild in my parent’s back yard.

'Mardi Gras'

‘Magnifica’ is the second vine to be planted on the fence I just mentioned. That is, if it survives. It has some type of disease and it is still in intensive care. It’s starting to put out new growth so I think it’s going to be okay. It just needs to be put in the ground in the new bed so it can start absorbing all those delicious minerals from the soil. No one can do a better job than Mother Nature when it comes to taking care of her ailing babies.

'Magnifica'

This Snail Vine is a super fast grower with really pretty flowers. I’m not certain it will stay in the garden next year though. It grows way too large for the area we planted it in and I’m not sure where we can put it. Jamie came up with an idea that I really liked. I’m not going to share it with you just yet, but I’ll be certain to post about it when we make it a reality. The Snail Vine gets a two thumbs up from me, just make certain you put it somewhere it has enough room to spread its little tendrils and grow.

Snail Vine

Ahhhhhhhh, the scent of ‘Confederate Jasmine’, we planted some on an arbor this year and the fragrance was so incredible in the evening, that we planted a twenty-three foot wall of it at the entrance to our garden. Need I say more about this vine?

Confederate Jasmine

In addition to the vines I’ve shown here, we also have Dutchman’s Pipe Vine, Hyacinth Bean ‘Alba’, ‘Sweet Autumn’ clematis and Climbing Hydrangea. I really wanted to have some Scarlett Runner Beans to plant this summer too, but it just didn’t happen. Maybe next year we will find some. Vines are a great way to add height your garden and create privacy. If your garden isn’t already filled with them, there is no better time than the present to get started.