Bleeding Heart Vine (Cleodendrum Thomsoniae) - PART 3

INTRODUCTION:

I must say that Bleeding Heart Vines (Cleodendrum Thomsoniae) are actually one of the hardest ones to plant but once they had establish in your garden - there is no stopping for them to continuous blooming and making the best of the space given for them.

In fact,
I had given lots of cuttings to my friends but many had failed get them growing.
I guess the part of propagation can be quite tricky.
The cutting will go dormant, shedding leaves and later after few weeks - it will generate with new flower spike as a reward of patience and achievement.
The other part is - you will never know whether the cutting is alive or dead.

If you notice the pictures here, The flowers had already passed its prime hence it is the best time to prune them. 

Normally I would strip off the leaves, cut off leggy branches that don't twine along the main stem.
Here I knit off them and bring forward to the gate - making an arch way.

Sort of a feeling of welcome is bestowed to whoever that comes into my house.
The gate now is almost invisible. Twining together are passion fruit vine and Variegated Trailing Bougainvillea. All seemed to be happily twining together so far.

You can see how many curls that took place over the pruning process.
They indeed look very exclusive to me. Make note to only prune the young vines.
You can keep the older vine branches twining them together and when they age in time - they give a cascading time stillness feel in the whole vine structure.
That is if you admire and plan your pruning properly.

I notice some gardeners prune the top-crown and the the aged vine left just staggering below creating a messy unrepairable look. The only compensation is the flowers that hide this ugly side of it - throwing out new shoots everywhere.

One thing for sure - this plant is very good in knitting & trailing them into an arch shape to adorn at the entrance of the garden. Proper planning can certainly create this majestic feel that can make anyone admire.

These are the flowers blooming after the pruning session, the spring with blooms a month later after the pruning. I took the pictures at noon, at the heat of the day and you would have noticed the burned red lips here.

Also I had not used any fertilizer here and thus the floral collective size seemed to be small and medium in proportion. The fact that fertilizer seemed to give an explosive feel for this plant - I would rather refrain and keep this monster under control.

You can see the pictures below of what I mean of monsters trailing around my garden. So far - my wife had not made any noise yet and so are my neighbors. Hopefully these will continue to bloom and grace my entrance until the next pruning session.

Finally,  I just noticed there is this white Oncidium Orchid peeking through these Bleeding Heart Vines

Another flower spike which I had totally missed taking a shot.

It was hidden from the plant main view as the spike trailing into the vine concealing itself.

Do check out my other updates on this plant in the main page on Clerodendrum species list.

Also more detailed information on the other Clerodendrum Plants and Posts:
Different Types of Clerodendrum Plant