This is one of my favorite plants, and every spring when we get a good warm stretch these lusty two leafed sprouts pop out of the ground,...Read More sometimes with disastrous results if it turns bitterly cold again. So I go out and rescue several of them if it looks like that might happen.
I do have trouble with vine borers getting into them, which shows up about the time they are blooming and sprawled all over the place, but there are always a few that survive and make those giant watermelon-like seeds. The flower spikes are very attractive and have a lovely fragrance. I was amazed to see the plant classified as a weed. That's just plain wrong in my opinion.
I first encountered this plant in the plot next to my home in Milford NH in 1985. I thought the flowers and the "bur cucumbers" were very...Read More interesting. I've been out of NH since 1999 and hadn't encountered it anywhere in NJ or MD since, so I ordered seeds, stratified them and planted them with heat on the 6th. They sprouted on the 10th (today)!
I'm starting a natural garden along my low chain-link fence that surrounds my front yard here in the Baltimore area, and it will be joined by virgins bower, which I also first encountered wild in NH.
I think that both are on MD's list of undesirables, but I'll keep them under control.
my grandmother used to call this plant "dutchmans breeches": because if you remove the seeds and outer skin you're left with what looks l...Read Moreike a little pair of pants...
I haven't actually grown this in my garden because its in the woods nearby. However nobody here mentioned that it smells wonderful in th...Read Moree fall when it blooms. It perfumes the area where it grows. There are a dearth of scented vines in the north.
I took some cuttings this year. Out of 10 cuttings with rooting hormone I only have 1 that rooted. The roots look great but the top looks terrible. Not sure the cutting will generate growth from its nice roots. :(
This plant, in Fall, indeed looks like strings of Chinese lanterns hanging in a tree; the fruits are so exotically beautiful to me. Whe...Read Moren I saw it growing wild climbing all over a fallen conifer by a river in Toronto, I was amazed. A neighbour says they are plentiful in Northern Ontario. I find it marvellous that a member of the Squash family grows wildly, as an annual, even in hard frost zones. The wild plant is supposed to be inedible (I don't know about the seeds though, which look as meaty as a pumpkin seed) . I can't understand why this plant cannot be bred either for ornament or edibility. The plant has been studied botanically and ecologically, from what I have seen on the net.
Wild cucumber reminds me of those gorgeous strings of Chinese paper lanterns only they are green instead of red.
This is a...Read More fast growing North American native annual vine that is occasionally used for trellises because of its attractive foliage and somewhat understated blooms in late summer to early fall.
If you want to try to collect seed from this plant, watch it like a hawk. Evidently somebody out there actually measured the speed at which seeds were expelled from the seed balls and they were clocked at almost 25mph. Seems as if the instant the pods dry, hydrostatic pressure pushes them out of the seed ball. I actually tried to wait to see this happen and haven't been afforded the luxury of witnessing seed spitting seed balls but not for lack of trying several years in a row. One day the seeds are there... the next they are gone. I was able to get some seed for the first time this year because I placed pantyhose around a few seed balls and rubber banded them off to insure I got a chance to try germinating this seed... finally!
This is a fun plant if plants can indeed be deemed fun.
This is one of my favorite plants, and every spring when we get a good warm stretch these lusty two leafed sprouts pop out of the ground,...Read More
I first encountered this plant in the plot next to my home in Milford NH in 1985. I thought the flowers and the "bur cucumbers" were very...Read More
my grandmother used to call this plant "dutchmans breeches": because if you remove the seeds and outer skin you're left with what looks l...Read More
I haven't actually grown this in my garden because its in the woods nearby. However nobody here mentioned that it smells wonderful in th...Read More
This plant, in Fall, indeed looks like strings of Chinese lanterns hanging in a tree; the fruits are so exotically beautiful to me. Whe...Read More
Wild cucumber reminds me of those gorgeous strings of Chinese paper lanterns only they are green instead of red.
This is a...Read More