This is a true twining vine and needs something slender for its delicate stems to twist around. I grow mine up doubled strands of garden twine, leading the stems to the twine and encouraging them to begin to twist around it. Once they get the idea, they need no more supervision as they wind their way up twelve to fifteen feet (4 - 5 m).
The stems are purple tinted, as are the veins in the leaves. And the pods! Well, as you can see, they are simply incredible. When the leaves are back-lit by the sun, displaying their veining, and the same sun shimmers on the shiny, lacquered pods, gloating is permitted. The typical bean flowers are nice, but it's really for those fantastic pods that I grow mine.
There is a white pod variety - alba. I grew it one year to see what it was like, but since my space for sun lovers is limited, I have decided to stick with the magenta pod vines, whom I adore. The white pods would be a nice choice for an all white garden. The vines are not as vigorous, I think, and the leaves and stems lack the purple tints of the species, but they are otherwise the same in their growth habits and cultural requirements.
Prepare the soil as you would for a vegetable bed, but you don't need additional nitrogen as these are amongst the nitrogen fixing plants. They do best in full sun, but they will grow and flower in light shade. Too much shade produces mere shadows of what they could be, with few flowers and pods. Unfortunately, bambi loves this vine as much as I do, so protection is necessary if you have a deer problem.
Hyacinth bean vine, also know as lablab bean, field bean, sem ( in India) or pig-ears (in China), is grown as an ornamental, but it is edible and has been used for centuries in southeast Asia for animal forage as well as human consumption. Pods and seeds must be thoroughly boiled, changing the water several times, for them to be edible. They are toxic only if eaten in huge quantity - probably not very likely.
So many vines - so little time! More vines next time. See ya' later!
More Information
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Some regional links:
- For those of you in Florida or the Gulf States, Floridata's Vine Index will provide you with information about and photos of vines that will do well in your gardens.
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