Vines

We previously offered this rare climber as kolomitka and like kolomitka, the new foliage is supposed to be variegated pink and silver, this only occurs on mature specimens. Young plants are all green, and distinguished by both the chambered pith and their amazing attraction to cats, which treat them like catnip.

This survived being lightning struck and having a wire trellis vaporized from beneath it, if anything it seems to have improved the intensity of the variegation (it tends to be slow for an Akebia due to all the white).

A neat climber from northern China and Mongolia, aptly named the leaves do look like an aconite, fruits are blue, I like it scrambling through deciduous shrubs.

A strange climbing Milkweed from South America, Hoya-like clusters of fragrant white 3cm wide flowers are attractive to night flying moths that they capture by the proboscis in the manner of some alien Venus Flytrap, holding them in bondage until they fertilize the flower. Failure to perform results in a desiccated moth corpse hanging pendulum fashion by its tongue, fertilized flowers develop slowly for nearly a year into large inflated pods filled with silken parachutes; the perfect conversation piece for a boring deck or patio.

Birthwort contains alkaloids that cause uterine contractions (the Druids version of RU422 but not nearly as safe, Don't eat it and don't picket us), curious pipe like flowers, weakly climbing vine, Europe. One of the high points of last summer was sitting around talking ferns with Dr. Storer, only to have him spot a 5th instar Papilio (Battus) philenor larva come crawling by, an event so unlikely that at first I thought it a joke. I’ve collected for years and never seen it in this part of Michigan; I figured Herb Wagner must have given him a larva or something. When I went to the garden to find it something to munch on there they were, 1.5” purple black, with magnificent fleshy tentacles like something out of the rainforest, devouring my Aristolochia clematis. We reared and released a couple dozen of the most incredible metallic blue green Pipevine swallowtails, they stayed around the nursery for weeks sipping from our mud puddles each morning but vanishing during the day. “If you grow it they will come,” they sensed the only available food for miles and came here to lay eggs.