This muscadine vine had been overgrown with privet and honeysuckle. When I cleaned it out there were only a couple of blooms. It never produced any fruit. I wonder if it was too shady before? What can I do to get it to produce? It is growing on a dead tree on the edge of my wooded area. There are other vines even farther in the woods, not producing fruit either.
Hi Jullie, I think you have answered you own question, your vine has been crowded out and shaded for it to flower and the flowers are what form the fruit, maybe cut back the privet as they are real greedy plants and will be taking all the goodness it can from the soil, I would also add a good deep mulch around the roots of the vine to feed it and help to hold some moisture, the privet and other plants around in close proximity will have shaded the vine too and that will prevent the light helping to form flowers, even the honeysuckle will choke the vine as it is a stronger growing vine, you said that it has grown way up into a tree, the tree will also take up all the nutrients and water from the vine, so give as much mulch and feed you can to the vine, as deep as say a 6 inch mulch should help, perhaps also because the vine has been hidden from view, the birds and insects have not been able to pollinate the flowers to get fruit to set, maybe there has been more flowers than noticed and been shaded from view over the years, as we are into autumn, it might be a good idea to cut half the vine back this year to promote new growth next season on new wood, once the new growth has got going, the following year cut the other half back, that way the vine wont be killed off with a complete shock and cut, the ones that are further into the wooded area are probably suffering the same way, so treat them all this way, a good multi purpose plant food mixed into the mulch will be the best thing and try to fork the soil around the roots of the vine to open the soil up a bit to allow more moisture to get to the roots. hope this helps you out and be patient as it wont improve over night by this method. good luck. WeeNel.
