The vines have it

I live in Casper, Wyoming, USA in an arid high plain a mile above sea level with an average of only 11″ of moisture per year – which includes melted snow. Not exactly a tropical jungle climate. So why are vines winning the war here at Bowercorner?

You may remember Planet of the Grapes, as well as The Art of Pulling Grass (also prolific in the summer). There are plenty of other vines here besides grapes. The most unwelcome is the bindweed, that I’m sure has a botanical name which may easily slip through the lips of most Master Gardeners, but does not come to mind immediately. I just call it bindweed. This creeps into veggies, flowerbeds, and grass.

When I was a young and naive gardener, a friend, Jay, told me he had quit the hobby altogether because of bindweed. I hadn’t heard of it before. I was busy picking out pigweed at our house. It would be years later that I discovered why Jay’s aversion to that invasive and aggravating vine was so strong. Since then I’ve learned that even vines I like get carried away. I won’t go into grapes since they have their own dedicated article. I will however bring up Dutchman’s pipe.

“Dutchman’s Pipe” she said. ( I later learned she was my grandmother’s friend.) Anyway, the plant was aptly named for a long spectacular reddish-purple pipe-shaped blossom. Well, I took that info and ran with it. I found the vine at a local nursery (also the days before we had Walmarts, Home Depots, and Menards). I was so excited about the plant that I bought Mom one too. We each planted them on the east side of our houses. Hers died and mine thrived. So much so that Tom bought one of those 14′ woven wire livestock panels and put it up the back of our two stories. The vine didn’t just grow up, it spread through the ground, grew up and around windows and doors and into concrete cracks as well as all over the clothesline. By-the-way, in all these years of abundance, I’ve only seen a few blossoms. A person who lives in a land that is brown or white much of the year can’t complain too much about something that is green and thriving, but I have to get wicked with this stuff at least a couple of times a year.

Today as I was watering the deck flowers I realized that the Dutchman’s pipe and Virginia creeper (also known as woodbine among other names) had crept up into the aspen tree to the point of pulling some of the branches down. I got out my handy-dandy Milwaukee pruner and freed the poor tree from her allied enemies. Later, I saw hints of pink under our deck only to discover that the Dutchman’s pipe was strangling the rose bushes that I had recently overlooked. It’s terrible when the plant you are trying to save is more dangerous than the ones needing irradiated. Yes, I did get a rose thorn in the finger and don’t like that – although in my case it is less traumatic than a bee sting.

I actually have two trifectas going on! Top – woodbine, grape, Dutchman’s pipe, Bottom – Dutchman’s pipe, woodbine, clematis.

I planted this poor clematis decades ago, only to feel I’ve neglected it in a guilt-ridden sort of way. I should be keeping the other vines away from competing, and doing whatever a person who wants showy clematis would be doing. In my daughter’s case it seems like she just smiles at them and they flourish. Instead it is existing, not thriving. Perhaps next year I will resurrect the scraggly thing to something more along the lines of the design of its creation.

In closing I will mention one more vine that has been a true disappointment to us. A well meaning man with a very special family greenhouse was in LOVE with hops. He knew we were looking to grow vines to cover about 40′ of a livestock panel fence. That was all we could afford at the time, but needed to do something to keep the deer out. We knew it would take a few years for vines to cover it, like Mom’s and Dad’s wire fence in their front yard, but you have to start somewhere. Although we have no interest in fermenting hops, we opted for them instead of woodbine that we already had in some spots, and seemed so utterly common, or grapes, that were out of our price range at the time. The result was sadly dismal. Not only were the hops thin and sparse, but they didn’t graduate into the spectacular autumn reds of the woodbine, which are enjoyable longer. I still have a little swatch of hops that act like they are trying to prove me wrong in my opinion of them. They are going for it! It’s not like I’m going to just pull them up. We can say we do have some diversity out there keeping the deer out.

As far as fermenting goes, one of the kid’s school teachers came over one year to harvest some hops at just the right moment and took the blossoms away. I never heard back from him about the result.

Oh, we do have a fairly new honeysuckle that is alive still, and just inherited another from a daughter who moved. We have yet to plant it from the large transplant pot – so far it seems happy enough. Next year I hope to add sweet peas to spark color in a few new spots. How have I gone this long without them. Ok, to be perfectly fair, I must also mention Tom’s love for vining black-eyed Susans. We didn’t find any this year so I will put that on my list to start indoors next year. Yep – I’m needing a greenhouse too.

Gardening is a consistently spiritual experience for me, including my dealings with vines. I think about what habits or thoughts can bind me like the vines taking over aspens and roses. I also have to acknowledge the question of what kind of vine I may be in relationships with others – trying to squelch or control their choices and life experiences or add beauty, protection, and nourishment. The scriptures are replete with horticultural wisdom, including vines. I love the words of Jesus in John 15 – “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” If there is anything worthwhile in life, it would be to allow our Father in Heaven to cultivate us into the kind of people he created us to be, which is something truly unique and beautiful for each one of us.