Saturday, August 06, 2011

Mexican Ivy

This is my favorite plant but I still don't know the name. A friend had this almost covering his house and he said it's part of the Boston Ivy family. Why Boston I have no idea but it does look similar with more delicate leaves.

I had it half way around my property in Villa Obregon supported by a chain-link fence. The landlord cut it back to almost nothing and his wife was furious. I was pulling out the dead branches for weeks but within six months it was all back. I have another on my chain-link fence and am thinking of one in the back corner of the garden. It will eventually cover those bare brick walls. I don't plan to let it near the house because I've seen what ivy can do to a house up north.

Mexican Ivy (cissus)

The Villa Obregon house - Mia 2 year birthday

The rest of the garden - as it is

4 comments:

Babs said...

It's not a true ivy but it sure does spread. Some seeds of it blew to Tx and attached to my brick home. Within 3 years it looked like I lived in an English cottage in the Cotswold. I love it - it sure softens things. I do have English ivy here in SMA but it is much slower to cover......Blow some seeds this way, will you?

sparks_mex said...

I'm sure you can buy it in SMA but if not I'll send my buddy Ron up with a plant when he's down for a visit. He's lived in SMA since the early '90's and has a few lots down here

mpstrak said...

Just took a closer look at the photo. The vine is clearly Virginia Creeper.

sparks said...

Locally it's called cissus but cissus includes 350 varieties with many looking nothing like mine. Cissus is in the grape family and mine does have little purple grapes

The construction of the house finished in April 2011 and I'm pretty much settled in. As of March 2014 I'm in preparation for rain mode for this coming summer. That includes sealing and painting things and dealing with drainage issues from last year.

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