Evening star., 1945-09-29
This and That
By Charles E. Tracepeu

Vines run rampant It is an old
garden saying. and it Is true. If it
wasn't true, vines would be much better
than they are around the old home
They have way of taking the place,
going places becoming nuisances. They
come UP year after year, even after you
try to get rid of them.
Old copy books should have held up
the lowly and enterprising vines as
examples of try, try again
Take the wild potato vine.
There Is one which beats the world
for luxurious growth, and every one
of the potatoes" falls to the ground and
makes new vine.
Consider that beauty, the wistaria.
We know one such vine which was
pulled up and completely eradicated-
at least so it was thought-some II years
ago.
Yet every year, at exactly the same
place, wistaria vine comes up!
This Is the triumph of the vegetable
world. No matter how hard the home
owner tries, he rarely succeeds in get
ting rid of these and many other vine
growths.
The trumpet vine, even the clematis.
will persist long after every vestige of
1t apparently vanishes.
If vines are left alone, in such long
humid summers as the one Just ended,
they grow all over the place.
The only remedy is to pull and haul
at them constantly. using the pruning
shears, and cutting ruthlessly.
A little bloom may be lost, but the
infiltration is definitely checked, and
when fall comes in earnest the property
owner can see his fence
If he lets his vines alone, he may find
considerable of hacking job before
him either this fall or next spring.
Il
Yet vines have a definite place in the
garden.
They soften backgrounds, which often
tend to become too hard and fixed
Vines furnish a moving boundary,
which 60 backward and forward, accord
ing to the season.
They >clothe bare fences in nature s
original green. Long after many flowers
have quit blooming, here come the vines,
furnishing masses of foliage and flowers
Rose vines must be considered def
nitely as vines. despite the fact that
they somehow do not class exactly with
the trumpet vines and the like, although
the old DR.. Van Fleet can cover the side
of house in a season.
High rearing vines, throwing blossoms
in tree tops, appeal nightly to those
flowers of the bird world, the humming-
birds, whose fragile beauty is nowhere
so appealing as at the cup of trumpet
vine flower
The lowly morning glory vines have a
real place around gate posts. Sometimes
the home gardener tends to forget the
beauty of the simple morning glories
Today he has at his command many fine
varieties, some of them of glorious blues
and soft pinks.
The even lowlier honeysuckle has
many admirers, but 1t is one which must
be kept ruthlessly under control or 1t
will cover everything in sight.
Old handy men say that the honey
suckle vine is as combustible as gasoline
itself, and that nothing is worse to have
close to a dwelling on this account.
There are many other counts against
the honeysuckle, so that 1t cannot be
recommended for the small home place
unless carefully cut back.
All in all, vines deserve more of a
place than many persons give them in
the home grounds, although it will
always be fight to keep them under
control. They help give more Of the
touch Of the primitive, the Colonial, II
you will, to the modern back yard. And
when planting vines, let us be sure tc
put in some grapes. Grape culture has
gone out" in the average suburbs Bees
and humans love the grapes. Surely
more space can be found for them both