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Re: Ideas for an arbor

Consider Dutchman's Pipe vine, Aristolochia.  Mine is in similar light and has created a wonderfully thick arbor. Although I've had flowers (not showy), I bought it for it's value as larval food for the Pipevine Swallowtail. I usually find several hatches each summer of the very interesting caterpillar.
It take little maintenance on the vine. However, it does tend to spread and I spend time pulling runners from the adjacent garden. It looks as if you would not have that problem with your location.

Lynn
Central Indiana, Zone 5.




At 04:24 PM 1/10/2012, Don Martinson wrote:
I came upon the following photo from a catalog:

http://www.tinyurl.com/7olll9t


This gave me an idea to create an arbor over my rear door and small deck (the black lines are for reference only):

http://www.tinyurl.com/6vw2kre

Issues (construction and materials aside):

1.  Obviously, I don't happen to own a chateau at the moment.

2.  The deck faces a direction which is approximately East-Northeast and only receives a bit of morning sun, although plants on the deck seem to do relatively well as it is a bright shade.

3.  The small patch of open ground (indicated on the second photo) gets no sun at all, and so whatever I plant won't get ANY direct sunlight until it gets above the level of the deck.

4.  I'm thinking some sort of perennial vine, probably woody, but not so rampant that it will require constant pruning (so, no Wisteria or Vitis).  I?d consider Akebia quinata , but I already have 2 of those (purple and white), and they do quite well along the north side of my house.

5.  I?d consider other species of Akebia if they would look a bit different (trifoliata?) or even the variegated A. quinata (does anyone know of a source of a nice clone of this)?

6.  I live in Milwaukee (Zone 5) and despite our very mild winter so far, we can normally expect temps down to ?10F (-25C) or even lower.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.


Don Martinson
Wauwatosa, WI  53213
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Supporting the Organization for Tropical Studies





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