Did you ever have a love/hate relationship with a plant? That's the way I feel about cow itch (trumpet creeper) vine. When I moved onto this property, I judged the previous owners as being a bit slack for letting a cow itch vine grow up a pine. I'm feeling a little more merciful towards them since I've been fighting that cow itch vine for 20 years, and it still is opportunistic enough to creep up that pine. Just two weeks ago I broke the tine of my spading fork trying to dig up a cow itch vine. Wretched vine! I've rolled my eyes at advertisements for the vine in catalogues. Sure it's pretty and attracts hummingbirds, but it is so reprehensibly aggressive!
But yesterday as I glanced out the kitchen window something scarlet caught my eye. Now, I have white and cream flowers, pink and cerise flowers, purple and blue flowers, and yellow and orange flowers. Very few, maybe one other that I can think of right now, of my flowers are SCARLET. A touch of scarlet amongst a sea of green just excites, doesn't it. It evokes impressions of some exotic tropical place. Somehow a trumpet creeper vine had managed to sneak its way up the raintree, and, there at the end of the vine, suspended in midair, was a cluster of blooms! It
is pretty. Here is a shot I took this morning.
Love or hate, that plant inspires passion.
