Garden Display with Christmas Greeting Decor

Well, it's a few weeks (or days?) before Christmas and the countdown - at least for us - has begun!

In the past, outdoor Christmas decoration for us simply meant strings of Christmas lights at the garage and the porch. Hanging Christmas lights is very much a standard holiday practice here. In December, close to Christmas, we'd occasionally stroll around the neighborhood at night just to look at which houses have interesting decorations and lights.

As has been the tradition in celebrating the long Christmas season, we're putting up the Christmas lights and decorations this early. This time, the front garden porch was not spared in spreading that holiday cheer.

Remove Old Leaves to Promote Flowering

"Remove the old to make way for the new."

That may as well be a sentence you'll read in a "declutter and organize your life" self-help book or magazine. But it's a statement that applies too to gardening.

Below are pictures taken from the same plant, a Cypress Vine. Can you spot the differences between Photo A and Photo B?

Photo A

How to Deadhead the Cypress Vine Manually

In a recent entry, I wrote about the importance of deadheading for more flowers. In that same entry, I added a simple procedure for deadheading the flowers of the Cypress Vine using a pair of pruning shears.

But what if you don't have a pair of shears on hand? Certainly, the pruning shear does a better job of cutting the spent blooms cleanly, but there is a way to conveniently and manually deadhead.

Shown below are a couple of buds on the same stem. The one on the left is the seed pod left by the flower. This is evidenced by its long pistil still showing. The pistil looks like a long white thread. On the other hand, the one on the right is a bud just about to sprout a flower. In another entry, I wrote how to differentiate a flower bud against a spent bloom.

When you Need Seeds from the Cypress Vine

Then the obvious is to let the seed pods mature on the Cypress Vine. Here, I allowed several seed pods or "fruits" to stay on the stems so I could "harvest" the seeds for storage.

Which Bloom to Deadhead in a Cypress Vine

In a recent entry, I wrote about the importance of deadheading the Cypress Vine and the best time to deadhead. Obviously, the flowers to deadhead are the spent ones. But if you're not careful, it's easy to mistake the spent blooms for those blooms just about to open. And what a shame if you cut them by mistake!

So which are the spent blooms? The photo below a side by side comparison between a spent bloom and a new one.


The spent bloom is the one on the left. Here are the telltale signs of a spent bloom:

1. Encircled in red is the seed pod or fruit. It appears to be more rounded and bulbous.
   
2. The seed pod is more exposed and the bloom appears pushed out.
   
3. Encircled in light blue is the spent bloom. It looks shriveled.
   
4. The tip of the spent bloom is withered and rough.

Compared to the spent bloom, the new bloom looks fresh, smooth and still closed with the tip rounded.

Deadheading for More Flowers

Deadheading spent blooms tricks the plant to induce more flowers.

from gardening.about.com:

Most flowers benefit from having their spent flowers removed. This is called deadheading. Flowers that repeat bloom will often do so only if the old, dying flowers are removed. If they remain on the plant, they will go to seed and stop producing flowers. Even many flowers that bloom only once per season benefit from deadheading, because the plant puts its energy into strengthening itself instead of producing seed.

Cypress Vine Update - Full Use of the Trellis

Here's a quick update on the Cypress Vine. The first bloom has become a fruit and is now ready for picking for the seeds. It took a few weeks before it browned.


The small fruit yields only a few seeds - only two or three. They're small, black and oblong in shape.

First Cypress Vine Flower

After several weeks of waiting, one of our cypress vines finally produced the first bloom ever!

I admit I was a bit impatient after building its trellis. I'd visit the vines everyday and wonder what's keeping them too long. This is especially when the main stems have turned browned indicating maturity and the vines were already crowding the top part of the trellis.

Building a Trellis for the Cypress Vine - Part 2

This is the continuation from Part 1 on how to build a trellis for the cypress vine. With simple materials and tools, it's easy to construct the lattice-like trellis.

The photo below shows the behavior of the cypress vine to twine to the support vine. So it's important to have plenty of vertical members for this trellis.


Here's how to construct the trellis:

Building a Trellis for the Cypress Vine - Part 1

Okay, after finding a spot for the cypress vine, it's now time to build a trellis. The vine would need some sort of support structure where it could twine around. Cypress Vine (Ipomoea Quamoclit) is a twining vine as opposed to clinging (Millionaire's Vine), creeping (Creeping Ivy) or sprawling (Bougainvillea) vines. So the support structure would need vertical members for it to grow upwards.

Finding a Spot for the Cypress Vine

After much inspection of the wall, I decided to locate the Cypress Vine on the whitish post which is at the center of the blank wall. I thought the color of foliage and flowers would create a good contrast against the white color. Here's a photo showing that part of the wall.

Cypress Vine or Ipomoea Quamoclit

One of the ornamental vines that we considered planting to cover our blank wall is the Cypress Vine. Simply having just the Millionaires Vine up there sort of looks bland.

Anyway, DH was able to get some seeds from a mature fruit on a robust plant that she saw near the kids' school. I've not personally seen this plant but DH says it has pretty tiny red flowers. Here's a pic from uniprot.org.