Blame it on the bunnies but I can't decide whether I should be horrified or happy. Last spring I built a funky metal arbor out of odds and ends I found at our local hardware store. My master plan involved growing annual cypress vines up the arbor to woo the hummingbirds and make my neighbors jealous. It didn't work. By mid-June those cute, fuzzy demons of plant death had chomped them off at ground level. They didn't even stick around to eat what they had slaughtered. They just chomped and ran.
Life at the Casa
Cypress Vine
I fumed and stomped but with a vacation on the horizon, I decided to just ignore the carnage and put my faith in the beans growing up the other side. But when I returned in July, the wimpy beans had barely grown in our freakishly cool, soggy weather. Determined to have something growing up my arbor I rushed to our local nursery, bought the first plant with arbor covering potential, and stuffed it in the ground surrounded by a ragged bunny barricade. It grew.
In three months my Mint Crisp honeysuckle grew seven feet. If it continues this rate of growth, I can expect ten more feet of delicious vanilla scented flowering vine to erupt next summer. I'm not sure whether to be excited or slightly terrified.
'Mint Crisp' honeysuckle leaves has variegated leaves and white vanilla scented flowers. It can reach 30 feet tall. I may have ignored that fact when I purchased it.
These just might be tears of happiness...
