My Twiner

What do you know... my Telosma is happily twining! As opposed to be something that climbs with tendrils or coiling leafstalks. That will be another story for another day because then I would be talking about my new baby vines that coil, two baby jade vines (Strongylodon macrobotrys.)

I know that vines, if left to their own device, cannot grow well without adequate support. The Telosma cordata (Thien Ly in Vietnamese, meaning "a thousand miles") does not flourish without a helping hand. So I obliged and gave mine just that, a helping hand. I guided a new growth around the stem of a small jatropha plant. That was exactly the invitation it waited for and this new stem of my Telosma took off and grew furiously, much faster than when it was left twisting in the wind, literally. Now that that theory is validated (twiner vines need a thing or two to twine around to be happy,) I would love to test the next hypothesis: Can this vine really live up to its name of "thousand mile vine?" I need a thousand mile long slender stem so my Telosma can twine around as its heart desires. Now, where can I find that? A thousand mile? My vine would reach Washington DC. So cool! That will be better than Jack's beanstalk. By the way, if you revisit your childhood book with the fairy tale of Jack, you'd discover that beanstalk twines too.