My arbor is woven with memories as much as vines.

Muscadine

Our first house had wild muscadines climbing trees, plus a dozen more that I planted. My husband, a food scientist, made wine from those muscadines.

I am wary of planting a muscadine in a raised bed with other plants and know that I will have to be a diligent muscadine tamer for this to work.

Then I remember an evening when I enjoyed dinner beneath a grapevine in a private garden in Antibes, France. I've never let go of the fantasy of sitting under a grapevine in my own garden. Of course, that vine in France wasn't our native muscadine, which is a host plant for sphinx moths and provides wonderful nesting cover for birds.

Recently, I relaxed in a swinging rope chair with a glass of Italian wine and a novel set in the Italian countryside. My cats stretched out on the mulch beside me while muscadine leaves both sheltered me from and glowed in the setting sun. Grapes, still the same green as the leaves, were beginning to form.

Ahhhh. Memories and fantasies shall prevail – the muscadine stays.

'New Dawn' rose

I wrote a Love Note from the Garden about 'New Dawn' rose. In 1931, it became the first plant granted a U.S. patent. It was developed by a rose breeder in New Brunswick, New Jersey—the same city and moment in time that my father was a teenager, my grandfather worked as an estate gardener, and roses bloomed behind the family home.

Did my family ever meet the breeder?

I have no idea.

But I like to think they did.

That's reason enough for 'New Dawn' to have a place in my garden.

Purple hyacinth bean

Purple hyacinth bean is an heirloom annual vine native to Africa, where it has been grown as a food crop for thousands of years. It was planted at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and was a favorite ornamental vine in Victorian gardens.

I love annual vines, allowing me to enjoy the purple stems, lavender flowers, and glossy seed pods of purple hyacinth bean this summer, then grow something different in that location next year.

Mandevilla

This spring I fell instantly for the bright tropical blooms on a mandevilla, picturing a riot of coral flowers climbing an arbor post all summer.

The blooms have been abundant and colorful.

The climbing... not happening.

In fact, the plant is only about eighteen inches tall and just as wide.

Then a friend mentioned she had bought a dwarf, shrubby mandevilla for one of her containers. I had assumed all mandevillas were vines and did not pay attention to the plant tag. That is, if there was a tag. No tag is near my healthy, surprisingly short, lovely plant today.

It turns out the genus includes more than 180 species, ranging from shrubs to vigorous vines, including some native to the deserts of the American Southwest. Plants sold as dipladenias are close relatives—botanically, they are now included within the genus Mandevilla—but tend to be shorter and more shrub-like. Breeders are also developing compact mandevilla hybrids that flower generously without showing much interest in climbing.

Four posts.

Four plants.

Many stories.

Perhaps that's what every garden eventually becomes—not simply a collection of plants, but a tapestry woven from memories, travels, history, friendships, and dreams.