Tropicals & Tender Perennials: 'Phoenix' bird or paradise, 1 by dyzzypyxxy

dyzzypyxxy wrote:
Hm, I had a huge mass of that jasmine at our last house. Trying to remember . . . I know it put on a fabulous bloom each spring, but I think it actually did bloom again sporadically through the rest of the warm weather. I believe it blooms on new growth . . . puts on a big spurt when the weather warms up in spring, and a big flush of bloom, then if you keep watering and fertilizing it, it keeps growing and blooming more.

Funny story - that thing finally "ate" a whole shed, really it was an old, old garage in the back yard that I used for my garden shed. When DH and I finally armed ourselves to prune it back, it was all entwined with a humungous bougainvillea, and we ended up with a truck load of prunings out on the street about 3 weeks in a row. The jasmine vines were leaking sticky, irritating staining white sap, and the bougie was full of those evil 2in. thorns. I felt so bad, I waited for the pickup guys to come by the week after they finally took it all away, and gave them all gift certificates for Einsteins. The punch line came at the end of that summer when the jasmine had grown back almost to where it was before we pruned it. That was a wet, rainy summer and we'd just stimulated it to grow and bloom by all that pruning!

We paid somebody the next time it needed taming. Beware the wild, uncontrollable jasmine! It's great if you have a chain-link fence or something else really ugly to hide, though.

You were right, Yoder's is quite akin to a Bob Evans, but well, more plain. Capital P Plain. Great desserts, though. Homemade pie. That house with the jasmine was about 6 blocks from Yoders. We used to walk over late-ish for pie and ice cream. Then waddle home.