Techniques for Continuous Flowering in Maiden's Jealousy

When I planted the Maiden's Jealousy vine beside a concrete post with a simple homemade wire trellis, I was quite hopeful to see flushes of blooms like those I see from a neighbor's front fence. The Maiden's Jealousy vine, also known as Showers of Gold (Tristellateia australasiae), seem to bloom year-round with beautiful clusters of yellow flowers that.

The vines were started from cuttings from the neighbors' and I was frustrated that for more than 2 years, the vines have not yielded a single bloom. This is despite the woody stems and branches as well as the lush foliage and vigorous growth. The vigorous growth necessitated frequent pruning because the post trellis wasn't very wide nor tall.

I was ready to ditch the vines when a space at the front fence opened up. This is the space previously occupied by the very beautiful yet troublesome Rose Cactus (Pereskia bleo). Removing the Rose Cactus wasn't easy, not because I will be missing its beautiful flowers but because the thorns were difficult to avoid.


New Location for the Maiden's Jealousy or Tristellateia australasiae vine

At its new location, the vine quickly took off. Early this year, buds have already appeared. Here's the vine as seen from inside the fence, scrawny but flowering.


Here's what I think are the factors that contributed to the blooms in the vine's new location:
  • All day sun - The front fence receives direct sunlight from 9am until 5pm. So that's practically the whole day. At the vine's old location, it received direct sunlight only at 1pm until 5pm or late afternoon sun.




  • Iron grills fence - The vine can grow robustly on the iron grills fence without me having to continually cut the branches as I did in its old location.



Techniques for Continuous Flowering
  1. Pinch branch shoots.

    As much as possible, this is to be done when the vine is still young. Pinching young shoots promotes bushiness. When the shoot tips are pinched, the vine has no recourse but to grow new branch shoots elsewhere. These will grow in random points in the plant (base, middle, top). As more new branches appear, the vines becomes lush. More branches creates potential points for more blooms. The logic is quite simple. A plant with 2 branches has potential to yield a number of flowers. But if this plant had 8 branches, the number of flowers multiplies, maybe not by 4 times, but close. At least that's the theory.

  2. Deadhead the spent blooms.

    In this article "Deadheading for More Flowers", I've discussed how plants, in general, postively respond to deadheaded spent blooms. Fruiting easily occurs with the Tristellateia australasiae vine because of the bumblebees that pollinate the flowers. So it's best to deadhead the spent blooms especially before the fruits mature. The photo below shows the fruits of the Tristellateia australasiae vine. The short red line shows where to cut the spent flower cluster.


    The point of cutting should be the entire flower cluster but right before the leaf node with a pair of leaves. Notice in the photo above that there are already young leaf buds appearing on the leaf node. The buds will eventually form into branches.




    To deadhead the spent flower cluster, pull away the cluster and cut right before a set of paired leaves as shown below.


  3. Prune wayward branches.

    To maintain the form of a vigorous vine, cut away long unwieldy branches. This not only retains the shape and form of the Tristellateia australasiae vine, but it also promotes additional branching in the process. This ultimately translates into more flowers.

    To prune these branches, pull away the branch and make the cut deep into the core of the vine, closer to a secondary branch or the main stem. This results in a much neater appearance, overall.



Here's the Maiden's Jealousy vine (Tristellateia australasiae) with plenty of flower buds, as seen from outside the fence.




It has been like this for many months now and the flowering hasn't stopped.


Here's the vine with all flowers abloom.





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