Cup and saucer vine
POLEMONIACEAE, The Phlox family
A new arrival at the nursery today, these healthy looking vines in 4″ pots are a perennial, but are grown here as an annual or greenhouse plant. Native to Mexico, they love full sun and regular water. They grow rapidly, to 25 feet in one season, or to around 40 feet over time. Cup and saucer vine clings by tendrils, like a pea plant. To it grow from seed it needs scarification: scratch the coat of each seed with a nail file, carefully avoiding the tip. Plant the seeds indoors, 10-12 weeks before it’s safe to set them outside. Barely cover the seeds with fine soil and keep warm and moist till they germinate.

I’ve seen this plant growing in the UMN biosci greenhouse, but have never seen it for sale at a nursery. It would be so fun to grow it as a patio plant.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 28th, 2006 at 10:56 pmand is filed under Plant Of The Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.