Mandivella?

Ok....We live in Garner NC and sometime (not sure when since this is our first year here) it will start getting colder...I know the mandivella can't do temps below 50 so we are going to have to bring it in...It is in a pot on a trellis. My question is do we really have to cut it back to 12 inches? Could we bring it in and leave most of it? The trellis is about 3 feet wide and 6 feet tall and covered!!! We got it hoping to be able to make it grow up our back deck during the summer and it can next year if we can actually leave most of it! And if we can what exactly do we need to do as far as care goes while indoors...it has been a great and forgiving plant out doors but didn't know if it would hold true inside....we only water about every three days...miracle grow once a month if I remember...(Haven't remembered very well lately! :( ) But as I said it has taken over the trellis...Just wondered because I'd rather be prepared for it when we need to bring it in...Ohhh...the entire plant is healthy as a horse...so no worried about bugs, or anything!!

Bring that beautiful plant indoors. Use a large pot to accomadate its tubers, which are stored food for over the winter. Yes, you need to cut it back. Or pick up dried leaves all winter as it sheds them. LOL I don't feed mine until about March up here in the north, then it starts up all over again.

You also might want to try rooting a cutting or two of half ripened wood. Dip it in Rootone and put in a pot indoors. They grow pretty easily - then you also have trading material.
Claire

ok...so if I don't cut it back and pick up the leaves would it grow new from the remaining vine again come summer?? And yeah...I know they grow pretty easy as I was able to keep it alive..I'm not the green thumb I wish I was.. :) And ok..on the cutting how do you know if it is half ripened wood???

On the cutting, start at the end and follow the stem back until the green turns to brown, then turns to darker brown. Make the cut here.

Most of the vine will come back. check the little triangular shaped nodes at the base of the leaves, and any that are not dried are viable to sprout again next spring.

I also have a Mandevilla for the first time this year. I was encouraged to get one by my neighbor, who bought one in a 10" pot--already in bloom--and hers climbed up her car-port trellis and bloomed it's head off all summer.
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I got mine from a grower in an 8" pot. It had vines going up a small trellis.
I planted it in a really huge pot and it has climbed to the roof of my high patio-roof, but--there have been NO blooms or buds. It is now almost September. How long should I wait?

If this plant does not produce any blooms this year, i would like to carry it over the winter in some kind of dormant form.
Se_ds--you said something about tubers. I did not know this plant made tubers!!!! If I cut it way back and dig up the tubers, do I need to pot them in soil or can I store them in dry peat moss in a box until next Spring?
Maybe it was just too young this year to bloom.

PLEASE! Give me some advice here!

Thanks, Gita

Thank you! I'm gonna try and see how much of it will come back...it is worth a shot...I'll just prune it next spring to get rid of whatever won't come back :)

Sorry Gitagal...I can't help much...I bought mine while it was in bloom and it went all summer so I have no idea if it is an age thing...I will know next go around cause I have taken some cuttings hoping to start some more of it :)

Gitagal - I have never dug up and tried to store the tubers seperately. Best to leave them in the pot- water sparely during the winter then re-pot next pring. Sounds like you just have a young vine.

Se_eds

Yeah! I was thinking that too. Maybe this vine was grown from a cutting or from seed and neede to be more mature. It WAS only in an 8" pot and on a measly, small trellis.

I CANNOT leave it in the pot it is in. It is a huge pot--maybe 20" in diameter. One of those heavy, black plastic pots you get plants in. I have collected a few over all the years I have worked in garden centers.

As I see it, I have 2 options.
One, cut the vine back (how far???) and dig up the rootball and pot it in a smaller pot and allow it to go dormant in my basement---or,

Two: dig up only the roots and save them in peat moss or in crumpled newspapers for the winter as just roots. I do not have room or light on my house to keep this plant anywhere by a window for the winter.

Assuming it would survive the winter, in whatever form, will my Mandavilla bloom next year? I think it should.

I work at a HD. Usually, around mother's day they get in all these pots of blooming Mandevillas. Our store did not have them this year. I guess they cancelled the order. If I had bought one like that, I am sure it would have bloomed all summer long. Lowes had them--I saw them--but I was being miserly and did not want to spend $20 on a plant.

Thanks for any advice! Gita

Gita - when I cut mine back and bring it in, I just set it on the floor and it rarely gets any light. The leaves dry up and drop off. Check the stems and you will notice they are a little green around those 'star-shaped' protrubences. Water very sparingly when it is sleeping.

Up here in central Pa. - abt 35 miles above Harrisburg, Pa. my plant starts sending out little leaves in early April, then I feed it. I set it out in May, after frosts are over and It grows a nice vine. It does not bloom for me until July, at least, right now is in full bloom.

I think the ones the HD and Lowes ship in in the spring are grown down south so they are blooming.

Mine is grown from a cutting - as I didn't want to spend $20.00 either. LOL

Thanks!

I will dig it up soon, cut it back anf re-pot it and then take it inside whrn the weather gets cold. All I have o lose is the $8 I paid for it.

Gita