Akebia quinata
24th April 2006
This is a wonderful, vigorous climber, that flowers for weeks in the spring with these racemes of purple brown flowers. I have never planted it (though I have planted the white form) -
this one planted itself. Back in the years when I still propagated stuff commercially, I stood three rooted cuttings out on a gravel bed for a few months. They rooted through into the
gravel, and twenty years later I still have it. In the meantime, I have dug it up, cut down the tree it was growing up, uprooted the stump, and used a JCB to remove two feet of
topsoil from the site. I still have Akebia quinata, growing from a stem that had layered itself about forty feet away. It is very beautiful, but don't say I didn't warn you!
17th March 2007
24th April 2011