Butterfly Pea Vine question

With all your help I now have butterfly pea vine seedlings and need to know if they will climb a support without me tying them up or do they have tendrils and take care of themselves. Your answer will help me determine where to plant them. Thanks

I've grown the blue butterfly pea vine with and without support and found it is best to use a wire trellis or let it climb up a tree or something. I planted one in the middle of a clear patch of ground and it formed a willy nilly clump as the tendrils tangled and twined amongst themselves.

The pea vine also serves as a larval host plant to a few Long-tailed Skipper butterflies :o) Do hope you like having butterflies in your yard and won't kill off any caterpillars you find curled up in their leaves :o)

~ Cat

Wonderful to hear the pea vine attracts butterflies as they are a focus of my plantings, along with hummers and thanks for warning about the caterpillars, because once, not knowing that I was killing butterfly larvae, did remove them from a plant.
Thanks for the information on the growing habits of this vine. I first saw it at the holistic gardens here at A&M but didn't notice how it was supported but thought it was just stunning. I was fortunate to buy some seed from this same garden.
When supported how much height have you gotten on average each season? I expect it to be an annual here, but don't know since I haven't been back to the A&M garden to check. I hope to cover an arch over a gate in one season. Thanks again, Geneva

Same here..they will find there way up, but sometimes will need a little guidance depending on where you want them to go or not go.

I wondered about those skippers..I always called them the pea-vine fritter. They are pretty with that blueish hue on the lower wings

They'll grow easily enough over a garden gate arch. I've had them grow up into an orange honeysuckle bush and onto a neighboring tree - give or take a good 18 feet off the ground.

Give them something to twine around and they'll go for it. Sometimes you might have to guide the tendrils the way you want them to go.

The Long Tailed Skipper (Urbanus proteus) is one of my favorites. That iridescent turquoise is spectacular in the sunlight :o) It uses the Blue Pea Vine as well as other garden beans and Scarlet Runner.

~ Cat

I've got to start some more pea vine...I have the seeds on my bedroom couch..but haven't had planting time..arghh..
your Solandra Maxima..is blooming it's tooshie off right now..it must have a long bloom season.

Thanks everyone! Looking forward to springs beauty!!!

yes, thanks...I planted a bunch of seeds today!

RJ...those solandra maximas remind me of Audrey II from the Little Shop of Horrors --- Feed me Seymour!!! I tend to neglect mine in the hopes they will not grow...but oh no....they continue to take over the back yard. Must keep cutting them back. Bad vine! Bad vine! :o) If it weren't for those huge, huge, huge lovely flowers I'd dig them out :o) Have you noticed if your blooms smell like vanilla? These have a sweet fragrance...and I am so fond of vanilla :o)

~ Cat

I could be in big trouble, while reading this thread I saw the ad on the side for gardenvines.com......................sigh....guess where I'm going................

I was just asked if they had a fragrance, and no..I hadn't noticed...but of course I'm going to run out there and smell it now.
No kidding...Seymour? I don't do anything to it either, but I did fertilize it yesterday as I was fertilizing some beaumontia murtoniis...it's about to bloom for the first time..It was about 1.5 feet when I got it, and now..like the chalice it is all over..big vine..in fact, I wondered if they were related some how, but the blooming is much different as the murtonii blooms more in clusters. These are the buds coming out of one branch, and there are 5 or 6 just like that...
You can see how thick the vine is there in the back ground. On the right, that's Seymour..they are now intertwined ...now wouldn't that be a show if they bloomed at the same time!

This message was edited Mar 19, 2009 7:18 AM

This message was edited Mar 19, 2009 7:19 AM