Saturday, January 16, 2010

Clean Up...


There is a saying... what goes up, must come down....that is very true with natural wood structures in the garden, very true. It all started a few years ago when I built a natural arbor using branches from the yard. At the time I thought it was a genius idea. Not to mention easy on the pocketbook.
I planted two Passion Flowers "Lavender Lady", one on each side. They grew and covered the structure beautifully. Critters adopted the arbor as refuge. Amongst the foliage, were bird nest and hiding spots for lizards. Since my stunningly beautiful passion vines preferred to bloom in the cooler parts of the year, and my fear of pruning it, I have let it ramble on for years.
This past summer half of the arbor fell, and this afternoon I pushed the rest down. Cut the vines off and added them to the compost pile, and removed all the deck screws from the rotted wood.
The vines look dead...strange, but a result of an extreme cold front that came through last week. Usually, it's in full bloom during the winter months, and it was this year as well. All the buds and blossoms fell when the temperatures dropped into the teens. The foliage died and dropped. Might actually be a blessing in disguise. It had been growing a bit too much. covered a Loquat and climbing away into the Mesquite tree above. There were blossoms 25ft in the air. Stunning. Though I did know this would be the year I had to cut it back. I really hope it's root hardy...I guess I'll find out in spring. Also time to figure out what kind of arbor to replace it with. If it DOES come back...It will need some support. My thought is to use rebar.

In retrospect. I might build another natural arbor, but Will definitely only use annual vines on it.

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