It’s a time when nothing in its right mind should be in flower. Fitting, since with flowers like this you could argue that the California Dutchman’s Pipe vine (Aristolochia californica) is on very friendly terms with the Mad Hatter.
Later in the year, the vines will leaf out and perhaps be crawling with strange spiky looking black caterpillars – the larvae of the pipeline swallowtail butterfly. For now, the vines are naked except for their flowers. Flowering season has just begun, and the show will continue for weeks as new flowers appear.
The vines don’t get supplemental water from our side of the fence – they could be sneaking a bit of moisture from the neighbors, but they favor a dry existence. They can be a bit tricky to find and get established, but once they’re in the ground and thriving we pretty much leave them alone.
Their native habitat is along riparian areas in our region, anywhere you typically see a lot of pipeline swallowtails in flight. We’re out of the corridor, so the butterflies have a harder time finding our plants. I often imagine how many more butterflies we’d have if everyone stuck one of these vines somewhere in their garden!
The vines are pest free (I don’t consider caterpillars a pest). About the only thing I’ve done with them was to train them on some wires so they could climb toward the sun if they felt like it (they didn’t, much).
California has a few other native vines that work well in gardens, but most are large and none of them blooms in winter. The pipevine’s bare stems are a bit unkempt during the period between leaf drop and flowering, but after that it’s a floral display followed rambling mass of leaves and perhaps interesting seed pods. The other horticultural bonus here is that these vines prefer partial shade, allowing their use as screens on wire fencing or dividers for outdoor rooms when trained on an artistic support.