Es-Car-Gone

Yesterday I headed over to the shed, intending to bring some potting soil to the patio table. But instead of taking the direct route through the arch, my path went the long way around. I suddenly realized that I seldom walked through the arch that connected the patio with the rest of the yard. Why was I doing that?

Apparently it was just too darned unpleasant to walk under the Snail vine. Twice-a-week pruning was not keeping its rampant growth under control, and the lilac flowers were always covered in ants, which liked to crawl onto the gardener. Why was I tolerating this? I never even wanted a Snail vine – the label read fragrant Corkscrew vine! The color was bland! There was no fragrance! It was an ant magnet! Where are the pruners?

Once the Snail was gone, the native Coral honeysuckle was revealed, pretty but also scentless. Instead of fragrance for me, the hummingbirds got one of their favorite plants. For years I’ve grown the delicate, rather invasive Cypress vine, Ipomoea quamoclit, and Cypress vine seedlings pop up in a few places every year. I found one and transplanted it to twine on the arch. With a little luck we’ll have a magnet for hummers instead of for ants.

SNAIL OR CORKSCREW?

This floral combination on the metal arch is really pleasing me right now, although it sure is not what I’d planned. Earlier in spring, the Lady Banks yellow rose threw her yellow-blooming canes onto the arch from the left side. Now the native coral honeysuckle and what’s probably a Snail vine are growing up from the right side. In March, I was delighted to find the vine, supposed to be annual here, as inexpensive little plants from the Travis County Master Gardeners’ booth at Zilkerfest/Florarama, labeled as Vigna caracalla.

Before the fest, I’d been mining garden sites for information on Corkscrew and/or Snail vine, and found many heated and conflicting opinions. Some insist that Phaseolous caracalla refers only to Snail Vine, a related but separate genus, producing lavender, scentless blooms. They say that Vigna caracalla is the scented plant that is seen at Monticello. Other online experts were just as positive that Phaseolous was an outdated name, that the species was moved into Vigna, and that the scent and color were a result of selection, with both the fragrant and non-scented versions sharing the same name.

Naturally, I was hoping that mine would turn out to be the fragrant white one with blushes of yellow & purple, and thought it would look wonderful with the honeysuckle.

Just as naturally, both of mine turned out to be the lavender one with no fragrance. And the ants adore it. Although this snail vine may not have the scent and color of the corkscrew vine, growing it on the arch lets me see its intricate shape at eyelevel.