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Wildlife Gardens in Texas Part 4: white veined Dutchman’s pipevine /Aristolochia fimbriota Vine

Highlighting the Dutchmans pipe
Pipevine Swallowtail

highlighting the Dutchmans pipe – This is the amazing butterfly that will visit your garden when you plant Dutchman’s Pipe or Aristolochia vine. Even without the welcome visitor it is an easy and very interesting vine to grow.

This is the Caterpillar that will devour every bit of this perennial vine but they grow back quickly. They look a bit like slugs but if you study them closer they are quite beautiful in their own right.

Let’s get back to the plant which has its’ own unique qualities. The reason they call them Dutchman’s Pipe vines is because the flowers resemble a dutchmans pipe.

Highlighting the Dutchmans pipe
Highlighting the Dutchmans pipe

This is the White-Veined hardy Dutchman Pipevine-it is a ground cover that will come back every year in Texas and reseeds itself quite easily. The smell of the leaves are very strong.

There are several different types of vines but be wary of the Aristolochia Gigantea-it is a beautiful flower and dramatic bloom but it supposedly will kill the caterpillars, if you grow them just make sure you keep them away from butterflies seeking to lay their eggs.

These plants do will tolerate full shade and full sun with adequate watering but it prefers morning sun and afternoon shade. They do great in hanging baskets but I have mine in the ground.

The next plant is the sunflower which is not only a host plant but easy to grow from seed and a dramatic addition to any landscape.

 

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Wildlife Gardens in Texas: Part 2 Passionvine

Citrine, the yellow passion vine

The second plant I would highly recommend is the passion vine. There is so much  about this plant to love and it attracts Fritillary butterflies that will lay hordes of caterpillars to devour it.

Gulf Fritillary

I have become somewhat of a collector having raced 9 or tend different species over the years and continue to be amazed by its ease and beauty.

Hybrid Flower

The plant is named Passiflora after the passion of Christ, there are a lot of symbolism with the parts of the flower, the stigmata represent the three nails and the 5 anthers below them the wounds.  The sharp tips of the leaves, the lance, the tendrils the flagellation of Christ and the ten pedals and sepals the loyal apostles. Read more

Lady Margaret

They won’t overtake your yard or destroy a fence.
I have had the blue variety come back every spring with a heavier base, I would think if it grew well enough it could destroy a fence but I’ve never had any problems with them.

The smell of the flowers.
 The blooms are not only dramatic and odd, they smell like sweet candy and each species has its own unique flavor. The thorny larvae of the gulf and variegated fritillaries will devour the stands of the plant but that’s why I grow plants for the wildlife.

They are Good for Bees. Attracting bees could be a good or bad aspect of raising a plant. I always welcome them and never have been stung while treating them with due respect.

Cerulean

The abundant flowers are many different colors and they will cover an area in the yard with beautiful blooms through the summer. I would highly recommend this plant because its easy and needs little care. The native purple, (incense and incarnate), blue (cerulean) and some hybrids will come back after a mild winter and will grow in most places with an abundance of light.

I will have a whole new collection this year and many more photos.
Next is the Dutchmans Pipe-be patient if you plant it, they will come.

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Remnants of Summer Gardens

Remnants of summer’s gardens; sharp gnarled teeth of devils’ walking stick, shriveled up stems and seeds of sunflowers waiting for spring.

I found them at the weathered gate, rich green algae on an old broken down fence. These are all whispers of a summer past and I realize the gardener is only an introduction of seed to soil, the wind and rain are the catalysts, each bird a possible carrier of a new seed and every weed a new battle for supremacy.

You can learn much about life from a garden.