Vine Study

Vines: Plants that have the habit of climbing upon other plants or upon sides of houses. Stems of vines are not strong enough to stand alone, seeking support to help get their leaves up into the life-giving sunlight. Some vines climb by twisting their stems around the support plant while others have special “holders” which are called tendrils.

♦♦♦♦

I never paid much attention to vines before--that is, until now!

A few days ago my mom and I went outside in search of some vines for our vine study, and that's when I realized how many there are! Vines everywhere!

Here are a few of what we found:

Our neighbor's wisteria (a member of the pea family) trails along the fencepost..

It gets on my dad's nerves and has to be trimmed a lot--or it tries to take over everything!...

more tendrils searching for a place to grab hold of...

twisting...

and twirling...

This is wild Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) that grows near our backyard...

it spreads really quickly and is hard to control! But it smells really sweet in the springtime...

here it has grown up into this tree...

and this our Jackmanii clematis--one of the prettiest vines we found--that climbs up the side of our porch each year...

OK. That's all for now---but I'm sure I will be on the lookout for more vines in the near future!