Vines and Climbers: Aristolochia ridicula, 1 by LouisianaMark

LouisianaMark wrote:
Hi Erick,

Thanks for the suggestions. I have thought about trying to make a spiral trellis out of wire. Right now I have 2 shoots on the vine that I just draped back over the top of the trellis once they reached the top. This seems to be working reasonably well. But there are a couple of things about this vine that might cause problems. First is the size of the leaves--they are about 6 inches across once they are grown out, so the vine does seem to need a bit of space. Second, a new shoot forms just above every leaf. Until now, most of these have been dying off--probably from the low 60s night temps that we've been having on occasion. But if they all survive once the weather warms up, then the vine could get out of hand pretty quickly. Of course, if that happens I'll just be using the extra shoots for cuttings. I think the ideal natural "trellis" for this vine would be a small dead tree. But I mainly want to make a tall trellis just for the fun of it. Hopefully I will be able to get plenty of cuttings to try out different methods.

Here's a pic of the next bud--should open in a couple of weeks.

Mark