Why I Oughta...

We've been growing Sweet Potato Vines for the better part of ten years.  Basically ever since I started to buy and plant containers of my own, we've found a home for one of these.  Or six of them.  With their rock-bottom price (usually $0.99 a piece), I naturally grab one of these and a spike or two and check the box on the "spill" and "thrill" in the fill-spill-thrill container philosophy trio. But in all of that time, I have never had a Sweet Potato Vine flower.  Until now.  And I have not one vine flowering, but two!  In two different containers .   Here, below, you can see both of the wine barrel containers that I used on our patio and you can see that both of them have a very healthy/robust purple sweet potato vine and both are flowering! (also note how happy the Lemon Coral Sedum is, eh?) The flowers are quite striking and add some drama to the normally boring vine. From this DIYNetwork post , it turns out that the reason I haven'

I'm giving Clematis another go of it - this time in Downers in our new yard.  Welp, actually, I'm giving it a go in a pot.  With a trellis embedded into the back of the pot.  In the photo above, you can see the vine as it was when I got it from Home Depot.  Below, you can see the tag that shows of the variety: Clematis H.F. Young.   The photo above only shows the small trellis that came with the container, but you'll have to trust me here that the larger trellis is, indeed, in place.    I grew Clematis in our old house in Elmhurst.  Here is a photo from 2014 when one of our then three Clematis was taking off.   I had planted the vines directly in the ground then, but this time, I'm trying a pot.  Why?  Because, I'm hoping that the trellis plus this climbing vine will provide some level of screening for our patio and give us a sense of privacy.  I found this piece that provided some tips on the best way to grow Clematis in a container (hint...larger conta

One of our three Clematis vines is doing well this year as it both creeps up the trellis and really began to flower out big time.  The other two aren't getting as much sun behind the Arborvitae, so they're not performing quite as well.