Doty Stephanotii

This is spring in Florida.

I'm so proud of my stephfanotis vine. I've lived here since 2013 and over the winter the vine made some gourd-like fruit, which I quickly researched. I shared one pod (mango-like in appearance) with my friend Robyn, and I kept one for myself. Later in the season I found two more!

The facts are, if you don't pick the fruit, the vine will quit blooming. I did notice that. Suddenly the old leaves across the vine started to turn yellow as well, and this lasted well into the spring.

I noticed it because I thought I had picked its two only fruits. But a month or two later I found three more big pods hanging there! They got snipped off the vine immediately. I set the pods on a table in my house to see what would happen.

Meanwhile I impatiently buried 1/2 the original fruit in my garden at the base of a mandavilla vine and trellis. Nothing at all happened for two months. A couple of weeks ago I discovered about 10 nice seedlings!

A quick Lowe's trip for a small bag of soil and a seed-starting tray and I'm about 50 seedlings away from more stephanotis. The seedlingss in my garden, I've already committed to three friends.

It took a while but look what sprouted in my garden!

Update: The flooding from Hurricane Irma and the heavy rains a couple of weeks later wiped away the seedlings. See my Projects post about the flooding.

More Groovemom posts about my stephanotis vine:
Dead Birds, New Blooms
Weddings