On June 10, 2010, I set up a wooden pyramid trellis behind the house. My wife and I had bought the pyramid trellis at Lowe’s for our birthdays several years ago. I set it up near the back of the house and put a pot with a hummingbird vine under it. That worked pretty well, but the wind blew it over. I had put a u-shaped pipe through it and driven it into the ground, but it didn’t hold.

For my latest attempt, I drove a metal fence post into the ground behind the house beside the nandina bush. I did this a day or so previously. I cut a square of weed blocking cloth, cut a small hole in the center, and put it over the fence post and pushed it to the ground. Then I placed four concrete pavers around the post. I set the pyramid trellis over the post onto the pavers. I got out a roll of wire and wired the pyramid trellis to the fence post. I don’t think it will blow over now.

I got a clay pot, filled it with garden soil mixture, and planted five hummingbird vine seeds that I had previously collected on January 1, 2008. (I always date my seeds, and I store them in medicine bottles in the dark.)

We got our first hummingbird vine plant at a yard sale. People at the sale were admiring her landscaping and the hummingbird vines in particular. Someone asked for one, and the woman who owned them reached under the vines and pulled out a small sprout. I asked if I could have one, and she pulled one for me. I took it home and planted it. It soon outgrew the stick it was climbing. That’s when I moved it to the pyramid trellis. I have seeds that I saved from two different seasons.