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The coral vine

This is a plant that I have seen and loved from my childhood. They have the most beautiful spray of flowers I have ever seen. They grow in the wild. The have earned the dubious nick name ‘railway vines’ as they are found growing along railway tracks.

As a child I have always wanted to plant them in my garden, but my dad refused to have them there. He would give me other vines to grow but never the coral vine.

So after all these years I finally found them at my son’s college. I brought a couple of seeds from there and grew them. Now I have coral vines in my own garden and enjoy their beauty.

I have also realized why my dad would never let me have them in our garden. These plants if planted on the ground can get out of hand, grow into huge,wild clumps and entangle all the other plants around them deterring their growth.

However in a container it doesn’t grow wild. The growth seems rather restricted and minimal. I also see them drying up in the summer heat and just as I start to worry, they grow back again.

These never fail to bring back happy childhood memories for me.

  • Question of

    Do you have plants that remind you of your childhood?

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  • Question of

    Do you have them in your garden now?

    • Yes
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16 Points

Written by Dawn

11 Comments

  1. There are vines that can devour a whole garden. Our garlic vine though beautiful killed a few of our trees. I had to bring it down and plant a cutting on a dead tree. It has started blooming there.

    • This isn’t Bougainvillea, but you are right about young plants dying , their roots system is not very good but once they are established they can withstand all kinds of weather.
      This coral vine is also called Queen Anns vine or Mexican coral vine, its botanical name is Antigonon Leptopus.