Schizophragma hydrangeoides 'Moonlight' Anyone have experience with this vine. It looks like it will be a big vine, has heart-shaped leaves colored with pewter markings. It also looks like it has adhesive pads to attach to walls much like the dreaded trumpet vine, which has been a rampant problem for me at some properties. Paghat says it wouldn't hurt my home's masonary. http://www.paghat.com/moonlightvine.html I am not so sure. It is a cutie and in the atrium it awaits in its dormant state a place in the garden.
Slow to start then big later. I've tried a couple times on a couple properties and never had 'Moonlight' take, so not always easy to grow. Seattle arboretum has typical plant and climbing hydrangea near one another, hydrangea vine (Schizophragma) more impressive because the floral bracts remain fresh much longer; otherwise similar in stature and structure, furnishing the bare trunks of Douglas firs for a considerable distance. Not as assertive as ivy, not sure it breaks up intact masonry so much as coats it. If you decide to reduce or eliminate the vine, pull the branches off then afterward you have quantities of branchlet and root fragments stuck to the surface that you will have to work at to get it all.
Thanks a bunch. I look forward to seeing the one in the Seattle arboretum ( am planning a June sojourn). It would seem fantastical for the plant to make it here when it had a chance in gardening paradise and turned it down. I may take a cutting for backup. I have seen it mentioned to get it to go up a tree trunk, but I figured the tree roots would hog all the water and nutrients.
Actually it's quite dry during summer here in the Puget Trough, behind the Olympic Mountains so east Asian plants like this may have to be watered quite a bit to get going and be kept going. Most forested regions are rainier in summer than it is here (this also varies regionally, outer coastal sections get some summer showers that we don't), irrigation systems are standard for commerical plantings and other more serious efforts. Lawns not kept copiously watered go brown every year. We also have abundant slugs, these and the dryness I think have both worked against me with this particular plant.
