Plant Library

Other Names:  Brazilian Golden Vine

Description:

An interesting vine for mild climates; beautiful blue-green leaves have widely spaced, eyelash-like hairs on the margins; bright yellow orchid-like flowers in summer and fall; great for garden walls and trellises, makes an excellent screen

Ornamental Features

Orchid Vine has clusters of yellow orchid-like flowers along the branches from mid summer to late fall. It has attractive bluish-green evergreen foliage which emerges coppery-bronze in spring. The fuzzy heart-shaped leaves are highly ornamental and remain bluish-green throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

Orchid Vine is a multi-stemmed evergreen woody vine with a twining and trailing habit of growth. Its relatively coarse texture can be used to stand it apart from other landscape plants with finer foliage.

This is a relatively low maintenance woody vine, and is best pruned in late winter once the threat of extreme cold has passed. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Orchid Vine is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Mass Planting
• Hedges/Screening
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Orchid Vine will grow to be about 6 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 6 feet. As a climbing vine, it tends to be leggy near the base and should be underplanted with low-growing facer plants. It should be planted near a fence, trellis or other landscape structure where it can be trained to grow upwards on it, or allowed to trail off a retaining wall or slope. It grows at a fast rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 20 years.

This woody vine does best in full sun to partial shade. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. It may require supplemental watering during periods of drought or extended heat. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This species is not originally from North America. It can be propagated by cuttings.

Orchid Vine makes a fine choice for the outdoor landscape, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. Because of its spreading habit of growth, it is ideally suited for use as a 'spiller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination; plant it near the edges where it can spill gracefully over the pot. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when grown in a container, it may not perform exactly as indicated on the tag - this is to be expected. Also note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.