Practical Gardening

"Remove the old to make way for the new."
That may as well be a sentence you'll read in a "declutter and organize your life" self-help book or magazine. But it's a statement that applies too to gardening.

Below are pictures taken from the same plant, a Cypress Vine. Can you spot the differences between Photo A and Photo B?

Photo A
Photo B
If you say "Photo A has nothing but big leaves while Photo B has 3 flowers and some leaves", then you're only half right.

If you look closely, you'll also notice that Photo A's leaves are uniform in color, size and and shape. Photo B's leaves are varied in size and color - some are small and light green, some are big and dark green. You'll also notice fewer leaves in Photo B.

There's nothing necessarily bad with having the lush foliage in Photo A. In fact I liked the way the wind blew the nice feather-shaped leaves. They all billowed in unison with the gust of the wind. But if you're after the beautiful scarlet flowers of the Cypress Vine, then it's the wrong route.

And that's another tip in garden pruning - taking out the old leaves to make way for new leaves for new growth. Many flowering plants thrive on new growth and the Cypress Vine is a good example. Which leaves to remove? The old, withered ones that have yellowed are certainly first to go. Next are the ones that have become mature - dark grayish-green and much bigger.

Shown below is how to do it. From Photo A, select one mature leaf. Pinch it sharply with your thumbnail and index finger.


Remove the leaf with a slight tug of the fingers.


Doing this ensures new growth and new growth brings flowers. Here's an overhead shot of the Cypress Vine on the wall trellis. You'll see the rest of the flowers at the base of the wall.


Another tip induce flowering is deadheading. Here's how to deadhead the Cypress Vine and which to deadhead.
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In the previous entry or Part 3 of this how-to series, I wrote about a successful vine thriving on a tall trellis. I also listed some considerations on why I decided to build a trellis made of steel wire.

For the Steel Wire Trellis project, here are the materials and tools you'll need:

Materials:
Steel Wire - Gauge 14, 120 feet
Square Hooks - 2", 21 pieces
Plastic Expansion Shield (tox) - #5 or size for the square hook screw, 21 pieces
Epoxy Clay
Quick Dry Enamel Paint

Tools:
Vise Grips
Channel Type Pliers
Long Nose Pliers
Power Drill
Concrete Drill Bit - size appropriate for the square hook screw
Paintbrush - 1"

Here's the roll of steel wire I used. I don't know how long this is because Ace Hardware sells it by weight. I believe the pictured roll below weighs 1/2 kilo.


This is the epoxy clay that can be used for the project. This type is for steel. Although you can also use the type that's used for water pipes for a leak-proof seal. Epoxy clays come in two separate parts. For the steel-type epoxy clay, one part is inside and the other on the outside as shown below. The two parts are mixed together at the time of application. The mix immediately cures into a hard bond.


This is the power drill with a drill bit.


Hand tools for working on the steel wire: Vise grip, Channel type pliers and Long nose pliers.


Two-inch square hook. The 2-inch length does not include the screw part of the hook.


Plastic expansion shield (tox) for the square hook's screw.


See the continuation in Part 5.
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Our patola or luffa is now ready for harvesting. It seems still a bit young though since you'll notice that the top part hasn't been "filled-up" yet. The plant grew on the backyard garden trellis.


This is how it looked just 4 days ago.


Here's the seed packet that we bought from Ace hardware. You'll notice immediately that the luffa pictured is not what we got.


Apparently, a sticker label (Datu Hava - Palikpikan) was placed to cover the label underneath (Prado Ace). Palikpikan roughly means "winged" and the actual fruit does have ridges or "wings" along the length.
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In a recent entry, I wrote about the importance of deadheading for more flowers. In that same entry, I added a simple procedure for deadheading the flowers of the Cypress Vine using a pair of pruning shears.

But what if you don't have a pair of shears on hand? Certainly, the pruning shear does a better job of cutting the spent blooms cleanly, but there is a way to conveniently and manually deadhead.

Shown below are a couple of buds on the same stem. The one on the left is the seed pod left by the flower. This is evidenced by its long pistil still showing. The pistil looks like a long white thread. On the other hand, the one on the right is a bud just about to sprout a flower. In another entry, I wrote how to differentiate a flower bud against a spent bloom.


To deadhead manually means pinching out the pod left by the bloom. Using your thumb and index finger, locate the part of the pod to pinch. This is just below the light green part of the pod.


After locating the spot, pinch on it using the nail of the thumb and the pad of the index finger. This is the softest part of the pod that can be removed easily. Anything below this is quite tough and could hardly be removed by just using the fingers of one hand.


Shown below is the pod easily removed by the thumb and index finger of one hand only. The cut isn't as clean as when you use a pair of shears but this procedure is easy and fast.


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