Cup-and-Saucer vine. Ocean Grove. Photo by Pegi Costantino. ©
You are my vine, my joy, my garden, my springtime, my slumber, my repose. Without you, I can’t cope.”
The Love Poems of Rumi (slightly modified for my purposes)
A NEW VINE
By Pegi Costantino of Ocean Grove (Gardening columnist @Blogfinger.net)
Vines are a perfect medium for Ocean Grove. They use vertical space which expands the allotted postage stamp garden and helps create outdoor rooms with green walls. Trellises go a long way to help with vines. They can be freestanding, attached to the house or integrated into the fence. I like to shake things up and try different vines each year. We did enjoy the red cardinal vine two years in a row because we loved it. The purple hyacinth bean is another favorite. Last year we had the Mexican Flame vine as something new and different.
There are three different growing patterns for vines. The kinds with tiny tendrils, like clematis, require something thin and delicate to hang onto. Trellises work well, but they also are perfect for camouflaging an old chain link fence. The second type has some sort of “sticky” things to help them hold onto flat surfaces. They can be like air roots (as in the ever loved poison ivy plant) or more like suction cups. Either way they stick quite well. The last is the spiraling kind. The lovely Wisteria is a perfect example. Just be aware that a Wisteria can take the porch right off the house as it spirals up the columns.
In the search for something new and different this year I came across the “Cup and Saucer” vine. I had never heard of it before. So I paid a ridiculous amount of money for a ridiculously small plant and stuck it in the ground. It was slow going at first, but eventually it made some progress. I think it would do better with more sun that I could give it, but it did creep its way up the trellis.
Finally, the somewhat scrawny vine produced a bulbous bud. It looked more like a pod than an incipient bloom. After a day or so, white petals emerged. The following day the petals were fully open, a lovely shade of purple, with a mass of protruding anthers. It was spectacular.
In full sun Cup-and-Saucer vine (also sometimes called Cathedral Bells) can reach 20 feet and be quite aggressive. Mine is about 8 feet. Container culture is an option if the container is big enough but it definitely needs something to grown up as it is the tendril type.
It still amazes me that a new flower can make the world stand still for a second or two. So much beauty crammed into something so small and delicate. You just have to look.
Cardinal vine by Pegi Costantino. © August 2015. Ocean Grove.
PHILLIP SMITH (of Ocean Grove) with JOSEPH TURRIN on piano. “To a Wild Rose.”