When I first saw the Cypress Vine many years back, I thought it was such a beautiful plant with the lacy delicate fresh green leaves and bight red flower shaped in a star. When we first move here, I wanted to have some fast growing plant to cover up the fence for some greenery in order to have some shade and privacy. This is a very fast growing plant which is robust and can withstand the hot weather without getting all scorched despite its rather delicate looking leaves when it started growing. Also it is a fast bloomer and within a month of growth or so, the plant will be blooming...very pretty indeed. The down side of this plant is it can be rather invasive as the many thousands of flowers all bear seeds that can start growing anywhere .......!
After I had the Rangon Creeper ( posted June 24 2010) growing very well, sadly I had to remove this plant as there is really no space around the fence area. By then the plant was also showing rapid browning and not so healthy anymore. Any gardener will know it can be a mess to pull out vines ! I presumed this plant has a short life span or perhaps due to the hot and dry spell, they started to dry up. It was not easy to just remove certain brown parts of the plants as they are all entangled up. In the end I just removed the whole mess of vegetation entangled to the fence and the seeds all just dropped to the ground as I cut and removed parts of the plant bit by bit.....! Till today young plants continue to shoot up around the areas where I had planted this plant. I have to keep removing them as I see them. Perhaps I should try to grow the Cypress Vine in a pot and twined it around some sticks and see whether it can be tamed. ......well just a passing thought, as I do like the lacy leaves and attractive red flowers.....
