To prune or not to prune

On the side of may house I have two big pines about 8ft apart. I planted carolina jasmine at the bottom of each tree with the idea that they'll grow together and make a living wall. Well it's working both trees have jasmine growing up about 20ft and towards the ground they've gotten wide enough to start growing together,

Question, think I should prune off the upper 6-8 ft to encourage more growth lower on the tree??? Think that would get them to grow wider as opposed to growing higher, I don't need them any higher.

Question two. Think I could grow more vines mixed in with the jasmine?? The object of that would be to have flowers at various times of year or something scented growing in there. I not sure if the carolina jasmine would just choke out any other vine???? Anyone have a comment on that idea??? Anyone actually pull it off?

To bad Bougainvillea isn't cold hardy.

I think you'd need to prune stems of the vine where you want them to branch out. Maybe others have more excperience, but I take care of a neighbors garden and he has confederate jasmine along a fence. I trim it frequently and it doens't respond by getting thicker lower down. There is more branching from where I trim. I think that carolina jasmine would respond in a similar manner.
As far as mixing, I mixed carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) with black eyed susan vine (Thunbergia annual) and cross vine (Bignonia capreolata) with exotic love vine (Ipomoea lobata). Not a good idea - mixing annual and perennial vines. I mangled my cross vine trying to cut down the exotic love vine. The jessamine and b'eyed susan vine combo worked better since the b'eyed susan is more herbacious as opposed to woody so I could tell the difference between the two when I cut off the annual.
I do have clematis growing together and clematic growing with the carolina jessamine. these work pretty well together.
As long as the pruning schedules work together, vines will grow and look great together.
Barb

I've noticed that too with pruning and the vine just seems more inclined to grow more up shoots.

I've also had the annual on a perenial vine problem. Won't do that again, it's very hard to get out the dead stuff.

I'm trying to come up with a decent combo of evergreen vines that flower at different times. I could add MG's but that would be a mess to clean out. Think I'll mix in some confederate jasmine with the carolina since they are both evergreen and flower at different times. Just need to figure out a few more to pull in there.

Of course clematis and climbing roses are a wonderful combination, although I've never understand how a person prunes the clematis without getting stabbed by thorns.

Sure seems like quite a task to prune back a 20' vine.

Core, do you have any photos of your jasmine?

I'll take a picture tomorrow if I get the chance. It's just about to flower.

As far as pruning the idea is to make a large living wall so I really don't have to prune it at all. The pines are large so no problems with something choking out the pines. I'm not sure how far the Carolina jessamine (why is Carolina spelled different from confederate any ways?) will grow. I don't want it to go up into the living branches of the pine tree. If I do prune it I'll only take off the top of the carolina jessamine. How much??? More a matter of how far up I can reach while I'm on a ladder.

Two different plant families.

Confederate Jsmine is Trachelospermum jasminoides

Carolina Jessamine is Gelsemium sempervirens

I’ve been reading Nancy Goodwin’s Montrose (sorry; I don't know how to italicize the book's name) about her Hillsborough gardens. She grows what she calls January jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) with Clematis texensis (scarlet clematis) trained on it. ‘Duchess of Albany’ has tulip-shaped pink flowers.

It’s supposed to tolerate hot, dry places, and blooms in summer.

You’d still have the problem of pruning the clematis back in spring, but it wouldn’t be as much of a chore as removing an annual vine.

I have toured Montrose and it is a wonderful plce to see.

Clematis texensis hs been on my "have to have " list for a while.

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OOps that didn't work, hmm can't remember right now.


This message was edited Feb 19, 2009 1:30 PM

Forgot to put this in here.

From the front side.

Wow, that jessamine has really grown. I'd go for it and top it and add another vine. The clematis would be my choice but you have so many MG vines; why don't you try one of those.