Solanum Jasminoides. Potato vine. I never recommend this plant to anyone. It falls in the same category of undesirable plants such as bower vine, kudzu and ivy. Not having desired one yet being the tender of one, i have stopped to reconsider my relationship with this vine.
The potato vine in question came with the house we bought two years ago. I could tell it was recently placed in a corner to hide some unattractive, patchwork fencing. It had no irrigation and was left to wander. I immediately had the urge to remove it , like a compulsion to pluck a wayward eyebrow hair.
Yet i have not removed this vine. I have used it wisely yet it has been an effort to maintain. I thought i might train it to cover a large open area under our decks. The gap it has filled is 25 feet straight up and it filled the space in a matter of months.
What i am finding is that the vine has trained me. I have been conditioned, in a classic pavlovian sense, to react to the sight of growth that presents itself above my railing. When i see just one new runner swaying in the wind, i cut the taunting new growth immediately. I am a live and let live style gardener but when it comes to the sneaky, spreading ,all over everywhere type plant, i know i must reign it in.
When i had to clip the plant from below, from above and from a 25 foot extension ladder, i knew i had been had. When i set out to train the vine i had no idea it would in turn train me. I can't say i am happy about it but the sheer wall of green with the numerous clusters of white flowers are quite lovely.
Just one more lesson to learn from the natural world of plants and our unnatural applications of them and our ever entwining interaction with the plants i love and do not love. Solanum jasminoides, observo!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment