We’re always looking for ways to divide spaces in interesting ways. Narrow supports planted with vines can work well, except vines typically don’t cooperate. They thin out from the base, putting all their leaves up high where they screen nothing – especially if they’re planted in shade.
We recently went on a tour of Monrovia Nursery’s growing grounds, where we saw up and coming plant varieties. At a vine talk, Gilbert Resendez, a managing director and master horticulturalist, placed a plant on the table. Deep green leaves, nodding bell-shaped flowers, and fragrant.
“It grows in shade, takes cold and it’s evergreen,” he started. Could it be true? An interesting alternative to the ubiquitous star jasmine is coming to a nursery nearby?
The vine, Cathedral Gem Sausage Vine, with an equally awkward Latin name of Holboellia coriacea, was found growing on or near a cathedral in England by Dan Hinkley, a guy whose job should be made into a movie someday.
He travels all over the world looking for new plants to introduce to the nursery trade. I imagine Indiana Jones, botanist. No tombs to raid, but extensive hiking in remote corners of the world with all their associated adventures.
The plant owes its name to its fruits, shaped like sausages. We haven’t yet seen the fruit, so we don’t know if they’ll be more salami, frankfurters, merguez, Polish… Hopefully they will be interesting and add to the plant’s character.
On our next trip to Los Angeles, we stopped by Monrovia’s Azusa headquarters and picked up a test plant. Although it takes cold and shade, it does not like poor drainage. We weren’t too sure about its performance in Sacramento’s hot summers, either.
To alleviate the soil drainage issue, we planted in a low mound, directing water away from the root ball. We’d tried another vine in this location previously, but it proved to be too shady – something that shouldn’t be a problem with the Holboellia. It’s already twining its way up the wire, and hopefully will fill in to create a green gateway to the house, along with an existing evergreen clematis.
The concept here is fragrance in late winter and early spring. The new vine is fragrant, but so are the evergreen clematis and a daphne odora growing nearby. People arriving at the door will pass through a perfumed space announcing that spring is just around the corner.