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Plant of the Week
String of Hearts Vine, Heart Vine, Rosary Vine
Latin: Ceropegia woodii
Every holiday has a plant associated with it -- in fact there may be several.
The obvious one for Valentine’s Day would be roses, but being obvious is no fun.
The string of hearts vine, though far from traditional Valentine’s Day fare,
will have an appeal with gardeners wishing to remember the sentiment of a
lover’s holiday long after roses have withered away. Of course it goes without
saying, my wife would prefer roses.
String of hearts vine is a trailing vine from South Africa and Zimbabwe that is
a member of the milkweed family. It produces long, thin trailing stems that have
widely spaced, opposite, heart shaped leaves that are about an inch long and
wide. The leaves are succulent with cyclamen-like markings of silver on the
bluish-green upper leaf surface. The lower leaf surface is gray-green to purple.
The vines can be three or more feet long. Along the stem is produced a series of
swollen tubercles that vary from pea size to an inch across. These round
structures give the plant its common name of Rosary Vine. These swollen
structures will root readily if in contact with the soil and are an easy way of
propagating the plant.
In midwinter, older plants will flower, producing what can best be described as
lantern-like flowers. It’s not your average Coleman camping lantern, but the
type with the small base and long, tapered globe. The name for the genus is from
Greek and translates as "wax fountain" -- an allusion to the peculiar waxy
flowers borne en mass along the stems. The narrow tube of the flower is about an
inch long and flesh colored, with the petals brownish where they fuse at the
tips.
Succulents, and especially their thorny brethren the cacti, provoke strong
reaction among gardeners. For some reason completely unfathomable to me, some
people don’t like them; you might even go so far to say they hate them. What I
find fascinating about these plants is their varied forms of adaptation that
allow them survive in really difficult conditions. A short, ugly guy I went to
high school with was always getting in fights and spent a lot of time in the
principal’s office. His comment was, "Hey -- when you’re ugly you gotta be tough
to survive." Though I never thought of him as a naturalist or philosopher, he
seems to have hit upon a truism in nature.
The string of hearts vine is easy to grow in any sunny window. It is on the
small side, so is usually grown in a 4-inch pot, but if several plants are
combined, it can be grown in a small hanging basket. Plants should be kept
uniformly moist during the summer months and then allowed to dry down between
waterings in the winter. Mealybugs are sometimes problems on the plant but can
be controlled easily by using a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol.
By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist
- Ornamentals
Extension News -
February 18, 2000
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