Spring Training for Vines

Plan now for summer displays



Spring arrives soon, officially, but if past is prologue, the first string of balmy days will be here before that to warm the blood. In early March, garden centers begin to stock up with the bright plants of the pre-season in anticipation of the fever.Rushing out to buy pansies or primroses is a fine way to celebrate winter’s end, but if you really want to do something for the garden now, think about choosing the annual and tender vines that will drape and decorate that far-off world of the late-summer garden. Why vines? They make up one of the few groups of plants that grow happily in a pot and rapidly enough in one season to provide near instant screening on a trellis or arbor, deck railing, wire fence, mailbox or lamppost. Common climbers, such as morning glories, or less-well-known ones, such as the weirdly flowered aristolochias, are particularly useful for screening in city gardens and apartment balconies too small to support trees and shrubs. A decorative trellis forms an ideal support for these vines. Some, including passionflowers and the hyacinth bean vine, maybe tender in name but can produce some serious biomass come October. If you need to build or install a stürdy trellis, do it now. These annual vines have a place in larger landscapes as well, grown as patio plants or on supports in garden beds toprovide late-season color, height and focus. March is the month to seek them out. One of the complaints about seed-sown morning glories — fleeting trumpet flowers in shades of blue, purple, red and white — is that they are slow to flower, blooming as late as September. This is an ingrained trait; they flower in response to summer’s shortening days. But other factors contribute to the tardiness. April is too soon to sow them, but June is too late. So pick May. Hasten germination by soaking the seeds in tepid water overnight before sowing. And plant them where they will get lots of afternoon sunlight. Don’t give them a high nitrogen feed or place them in too rich a soil. Those factors will promote vigorous growth but few flowers. Renee Shepherd, founder of the online seed nursery Renee’s Garden, says varieties of morning glories named purpurea and tri-color will flower earlier than others. These include HeavenlY Blue, Early Call, the heirloom Grandpa Ott’s and a variety put together by Shepherd called Mailbox Mix, with flowers in blue and white. The family also includes the gorgeous scented moonflower vine, whose big, fragrant trumpets open at night. The cardinal vine, another relative, has tiny scarlet trumpets that drawhummingbirds. No late summer is complete without either. An obscure tropical vine named momordica is seed-sown in May, will cover a tall trellis by late summer and eventually will produce edible fruit. The Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants in Charlottesville, Va., sells two varieties, the balsam pear and the balsam apple. Byron Martin of Logee’s Greenhouses in Danielson, Conn., favors a morning glory named Blue Dawn Flower. Its vigor has made it a weed in some tropical regions. Martin said the flowers stay open longer than typical morning glories, whose blooms shrivel in the heat of the day, to be replaced with new ones the following night Martin also recommends athunbergia hybrid named Sunlady. “You can put it in as a young cutting and it will take over a trellis by the end of the season," he said. Its single flowers are daisy-like, with pale yellow petals and a black center.

-Washington Post