Green Thumb Expert Needed

H

Hawkeye10

ButterMilk Man
Contributor
I have two indoor vines that keep dying back every year or two, leaving a mess of dead vines tangled with the live ones. I cant go to bigger pots for reasons I wont go into. Can I mitigate the problem by doing better at feeding Miracle Grow? I dont have a watering problem, I know how to do that.

I am officially annoyed.

TYVM
 
Hawkeye10 said:
I have two indoor vines that keep dying back every year or two, leaving a mess of dead vines tangled with the live ones. I cant go to bigger pots for reasons I wont go into. Can I mitigate the problem by doing better at feeding Miracle Grow? I dont have a watering problem, I know how to do that.

I am officially annoyed.

TYVM
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What kind of vines?
 
Matt Dillon said:
What kind of vines?
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They are long, curled many times around curtain rods, one the longest maybe 25 feet, the other more like 40. They look like ivy to me. Both repotted three years ago. I could repot them again but it would be a super pain in the ass.
 
I hate vines. My knee-jerk reaction is spray them with some glyphosate and Garlon 4.

I still have some in the garage somewhere..if the jug hasn't dry-rotted.
 
Matt Dillon said:
I hate vines. My knee-jerk reaction is spray them with some glyphosate, and Garlon 4.

I still have some in the garage somewhere..if the jug hasn't dry-rotted.
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They looked so great before the diebacks started, now I dont know what to do. As they grew I kept wrapping them around curtain rods, so they get very long...maybe I should not do that so much so that they stall out?

I really do need an expert.
 
Check the pots again. If it's a hardened clump of root, you have to repot again. Cut back the fibrous root and repot. Most old growth leaf dies off and needs to be cleaned out over time anyway.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
They looked so great before the diebacks started, now I dont know what to do. As they grew I kept wrapping them around curtain rods, so they get very long...maybe I should not do that so much so that they stall out?

I really do need an expert.
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Cut them all the way back and repot. They'll come back very happy.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
What does "all the way back" mean?

Which season would be the best? Winter here we keep the house at 67, with our new AC summer is 71.
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Cut 'em back to just outside the edge of the pot. Replant into a bigger pot and fluff the roots up.
 
Look at how a vine grows in nature. It gets to a certain length then attaches to something. When it is able to obtain nutrients from the attachment, it grows longer until it finds something else to attach to.

Inside it is not able to obtain nutrients from the attachments that it has found.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
What does "all the way back" mean?

Which season would be the best? Winter here we keep the house at 67, with our new AC summer is 71.
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Not sure what you have, but typically when the days get longer it triggers vegetative state. If you aren't crazy about them traveling across the room, cut the vines all the way back to a foot or two. If the pots are hanging, you can leave them longer and play the curtain rod game again as it grows. If you repot and cut the roots back, they'll go somewhat dormant until the roots take hold again. If you do it soon, by spring it will be ready to take off again.
 
Jim Eagle said:
Look at how a vine grows in nature. It gets to a certain length then attaches to something. When it is able to obtain nutrients from the attachment, it grows longer until it finds something else to attach to.

Inside it is not able to obtain nutrients from the attachments that it has found.
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I know nothing about that. I assume that these are indoor plants because my wife rescued these and a whole lot more plants during renovations at MotherShip Starbucks (HQ). Instead of taking them home and bringing them back to their cube (Starbucks never did the deeply idiot "open office") people left plants that they had taken care of for sometimes years, all the way up to the last day. THen left them to be thrown into the trash.....everyone knew that they were headed for the trash.

I do pretty good at keeping them alive. I like to remember that Grandpa Crozier was a farmer from about the age of five, I should be able to do this.
 
Althea said:
Not sure what you have, but typically when the days get longer it triggers vegetative state. If you aren't crazy about them traveling across the room, cut the vines all the way back to a foot or two. If the pots are hanging, you can leave them longer and play the curtain rod game again as it grows. If you repot and cut the roots back, they'll go somewhat dormant until the roots take hold again. If you do it soon, by spring it will be ready to take off again.
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Thank You.
 
I had to tell my wife no more saving planets for awhile, as we were out of space. I have a few right now that dont look so good, I suspect three days in a row above 100 might be the reason, they just are not built for that.

Hopefully it is not me!
 
Althea said:
He said he didn't want a bigger pot, so he can trim the roots and fluff them.
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One is hanging from a rod that cant take more weight, one is on a little table where there is no room for either a bigger table or a bigger pot on the current table. I can repot them and change out a bunch of the soil (40% is best?), but I am lazy, I hope that I dont have to.....but I will.
 
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