Cut back potato vine

Posts

• Rubytoo Posts: 1,630

  4 January edited 4 January

  Not sure but a bump for you.
  I grew a couple from cuttings so ours are not large enough to worry about yet. First time for me so sorry no experience just a "bump" for you post.
  
  Is that whole bunch of stems that are in the image and the cut thick stems also the same plant? It is quite a tangle
  
  Also are you aiming for it to be a shrub as you have a lot of big old stems there, or climber?
  
  Asking to help other posters answer.
  It is usually grown as a climber I think.
  
  You are supposed to cut them back in late winter or early spring. But I don't know what happens if you cut them back hard or if they renovate very well.
  Good Luck anyway.
  
  Edited twice as I am pants.

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• Lyn Posts: 23,190

  4 January

  Is it the one with the little blue flowers?  I had one,  I would cut right it right back in the spring,  it would reach the top of the shed and beyond every year,  we had to take it right out in the end.

  Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 
  
  

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• thevictorian Posts: 1,279

  4 January

  We had one of those and it grew faster than anything I've grown before. It used to get vigorously whacked back every so often and recovered strongly, so strongly in fact that we took it out. It was nice and the bees loved it but it became unmanageable in the space we had for it.

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• daniel.burwitz00310 Posts: 2

  4 January

  Thank you all for your insights. 

  I love its abundance of blue flowers and the bees it attracts. It just grows like crazy. 

  I will try to keep it as shrub. I disentangled and cut it back. Let's see what spring will show. 

  
  

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• Busy-Lizzie Posts: 24,043

  4 January

  I grow mine as a climber tied to wires on the fence. I prune it twice a year and tie it in. It's lovely in flower and hasn't got out of control yet.
  
  
  

  Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.

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