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: If You Build It They Will Grow
Amazing how a little experiment can grow, in more ways than one.
Three years ago I planted a one bud cutting of Swenson Red in a flower bed at the base of a wall. One bud cuttings are used commonly in the UK, but not much in the US, so I thought I'd test the method. I chose Swenson Red because I know how it performed with other propagation methods.
Not only did the cutting grow, it put up a shoot all the way to the top of the wall, about seven feet up.
Since the wall was part of our daylight basement, it looked like it would be simple to attach an arbor to the wall and train the vine on it to act like a living awning over a window there. Swenson Red has good, but not excessive vigor in the vineyard, so I estimated that a long, narrow arbor, 2 feet from front to back and 12 feet long, should hold the vine nicely.
The next season that vine sent out a shoot that reached the full 12 foot length of the arbor and filled it with foliage.
Last year, it not only filled the arbor and had a good crop, the curtain of shoots was so dense it was a nuisance. A bigger arbor seemed necessary.
This spring I expanded the arbor to 8 by 12 feet and even poured a cement pad under it, thinking we could have a little spot for a chair or two.
It's not yet July 1 and the vine has shoots reaching all the way across the arbor and starting to hang off the edges enough to require some tying up.
And this with a grape that is of only average vigor in the vineyard.
Maybe it's time to increase the arbor to 12 x 16 feet.
Or am I on the way to another Hampton Court size vine?
http://europeforvisitors.com/europe/cou
Amazing how a little experiment can grow, in more ways than one.
Three years ago I planted a one bud cutting of Swenson Red in a flower bed at the base of a wall. One bud cuttings are used commonly in the UK, but not much in the US, so I thought I'd test the method. I chose Swenson Red because I know how it performed with other propagation methods.
Not only did the cutting grow, it put up a shoot all the way to the top of the wall, about seven feet up.
Since the wall was part of our daylight basement, it looked like it would be simple to attach an arbor to the wall and train the vine on it to act like a living awning over a window there. Swenson Red has good, but not excessive vigor in the vineyard, so I estimated that a long, narrow arbor, 2 feet from front to back and 12 feet long, should hold the vine nicely.
The next season that vine sent out a shoot that reached the full 12 foot length of the arbor and filled it with foliage.
Last year, it not only filled the arbor and had a good crop, the curtain of shoots was so dense it was a nuisance. A bigger arbor seemed necessary.
This spring I expanded the arbor to 8 by 12 feet and even poured a cement pad under it, thinking we could have a little spot for a chair or two.
It's not yet July 1 and the vine has shoots reaching all the way across the arbor and starting to hang off the edges enough to require some tying up.
And this with a grape that is of only average vigor in the vineyard.
Maybe it's time to increase the arbor to 12 x 16 feet.
Or am I on the way to another Hampton Court size vine?
http://europeforvisitors.com/europe/cou