Ipomoea

The rampant chartreuse vine spilling from planters all over New York is Ipomoea ‘Marguerite,’ aka the Sweet Potato Vine.

A lot of people started planting Marguerite about 10 years ago, but I can’t quite get used to her as a rank and file member of our flora. She’s a dominatrix, and her vigor has a supernatural, mutant-Kudzu quality. Still I use her in new plantings all the time because she makes a fast start and gives everyone the impression that they know what they are doing. Marguerite is a tender tropical, and fortunately she’s laid flat by the first frost.

There are a few other Ipomoeas, including black leaved ones that can be used to macabre effect. “Blackie” has a divided leaf and nice violet flowers that resemble morning glory, which is in the same genus. I’ve never noticed flowers on other Ipomoeas.

‘Carolina Bronze’ has an interesting bronze brown leaf that mixes poorly with most other plants. I’ve liked seeing it grown with Coleus ‘Trailing Red’ and the scarlet dahlia with dark leaves called ‘Bishop of Llandaff.’ It also looks good at the base of big blue-leafed agaves. Generally Carolina lends herself to sophisticated, highly edited planting schemes of foliage in muted pastels.

‘Tricolor’ is just awful. Its leaf is green mottled with white, lavender and pink.

I think we are just getting started with Ipomoea. New varieties are introduced every year, including one marketed as a more “restrained” version of Marguerite.

Feral petunias

Little magenta petunias, growing from cracks in the pavement, appear all over New York in August. They are the feral offspring of hybrid petunias. The descendents aren’t as showy as their ancestors, but they have recovered the resinous honeysweet fragrance that is faint in some of the garden hybrids.

I think these wildlings can carry on like this, reseeding for years. They aren’t really a substitute for garden petunias, but in their way, they are splendid.

Four-o-clocks, nicotiana, cleomes and verbena: All are tropical annuals that seem to perpetuate themselves by seed.

Tuberose

I grow tuberose for its scent on hot summer nights. The flower is white and held up on a strong stem so you don't have to stoop to sniff.

It grows from bulbs that are set out after the soil is warm. Bloom starts in July and continues through September. Unlike spring bulbs, tuberoses do not all bloom together. One bulb will bloom 60 days after planting, another 90, so there’s a long staggered season. Tuberose is tropical, flourishing in sun and heat and rich, moist soil. Put out too early in cold soil, they sulk.

Their long grassy foliage is unkempt, so I have planted them among daylilies and grasses where the leaves will be concealed. Every year I think that a 15” pot planted with a dozen bulbs would be a good idea. I have a notion that in isolation, the plant’s messiness would be less a fault, but I have yet to grow them that way.

I’ve grown both the double “Pearl” and single “Mexican White.” Both are fantastically scented, and I surprised myself when I found I preferred “Pearl” as I usually favor singles.

The bulbs can be stored inside over winter. Leave them in the ground till Thanksgiving -- they don’t usually show signs of dormancy. I lift the bulbs leaving the top growth attached, then wash the soil from the bulb and roots and just leave the dug plant outside to air dry. Their leaves reluctantly yellow and drop. When frost is expected I bring the bulbs with all their top growth attached inside and keep them in a cardboard box in an unheated room. They spend the winter like that.

Around tax day I take a look. All the foliage and dried roots can be pulled from the bulbs. Usually they have offset dozens of little bulblets that I break from the mother bulb. (These will throw up a mess of little unblooming shoots if they are left on. The bigger offsets will send up flowers.) Usually I pot up some of the bulbs and start them on a heat mat. Just as they were reluctant to go dormant, they are reluctant to resume growth. It’s usually a month or so before they break dormancy. Wait till the ground is really warm before they are planted out.

Ivy

I love ivy grown up trees. English ivy is dark, evergreen and macabre. It lends an elegiac, Hubert Robert sort of melancholy to the scene. When I die, I want a grave marked with a slate headstone in a country cemetery with black locust trees clothed in ivy. Wrought iron fences, bearded iris, yuccas on a lawn that goes brown in the summer. I imagine an atmosphere of dereliction that invites reverie and mischief.

Boston ivy is another story. It is bright and glossy and shimmers in the breeze. In high summer it drapes from branches in great luxuriant swags. It turns a vibrant crimson in autumn.

Ivy does not hurt the trees. Some people get upset when they see ivy in trees, but they should realize that they grown together in nature and that a bit of ivy does no harm.