Grapevine?

Zournathan

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We have a vine growing in the bushes by the side of our house that I think is a grapevine. I took some pictures to hopefully get a positive ID. Also, I haven't found much about collecting a grapevine other then that they root from cuttings very easily. As for care, replicating the lighting and watering conditions it's getting in it's current location shouldn't be very difficult.
 

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Zournathan

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Here is a picture of the base of the vine. It makes a very sharp bend right at the soil line and then makes a sweeping curve before rooting again and then growing skyward.
 

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Zournathan

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This picture shows (rather poorly I'm afraid) the distance from the base of the vine to the first bit of foliage.
 

rockm

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Wild Grape is mostly a bad bonsai plant. It's unruly, has questionable branching habits and the leaves are huge.

However, an interesting trunk is an interesting trunk. This one is pretty interesting. I'd collect it and worry about handling the other stuff as it becomes necessary. Wild grape are weeds and root pretty easily. I'd measure out about eight inches to a foot from the trunk, dig around to see if there are any feeder roots in the vicinity. If there are few, dig it up...If not, ground layer...
 

Zournathan

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Yeah I kind of figured the leaves might be problematic but what the heck...if nothing else it will be an interesting learning experience. Does anyone know the best time of year for digging a wild grapevine? Every search I do comes up with tons of information on which grapes make what wines but little about the plants themselves. :p
 

Ross

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Here's a picture of a Mustang grape my girlfriend took at the LSBF convention on Saturday. It didn't have much foliage but the trunk was sweet and it was one of my favorites.
 

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Zournathan

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Wow...that is a nice trunk Ross.

Thanks for the additional information rockm. I guess the next step is to take your earlier advice and start searching around it to see if i can determine the size of it's root ball. This could be rather difficult since it's coming up right next to a good sized azalea, but I'll see what I can find out after work. :)
 

misfit11

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Here's a picture of a Mustang grape my girlfriend took at the LSBF convention on Saturday. It didn't have much foliage but the trunk was sweet and it was one of my favorites.

Very nice! I've always wondered about grape species as I live in California wine country. Looks like they were able to get the leaves to reduce pretty well. Thanks for sharing.
 

rockm

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Wild grape and the cultivated European varieties used in California are not really the same thing. Cultivated grapes in Cal. have long been a source of bonsai material, as the plants are regularly replaced in vineyards with better stock. John Naka had a Cal. grape bonsai...

Wild grape is not as amenable to collection, as its roots tend to sprawl, it also rarely has leaves on the first twenty five feet of trunk...
 

Zournathan

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I just went outside and took a better look at this grapevine. There seems to be a fair bit of roots up near the surface, which is good. The bad thing is like you just said they do look like they sprawl a fair bit and it has several roots coming off the section of trunk that is parallel to the ground. Also the base of the trunk is about 6.5 inches from the base of the azalea it is growing next to. Do y'all think there is a risk of fatal injury to the azalea if I were to dig this fella up sometime this week or this upcoming weekend? Obviously I'll do my best to be careful in the space between the grape and the azalea but some root damage to the azalea will be unavoidable. However, since it's only on one side it seems to me like it shouldn't be life threatening to it.
 

rockm

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I'd skip the grape and take the azalea ;-)

Seriously, the azalea will be fine, just backfill the hole, don't leave exposed roots.
 

Zournathan

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Hahaha...I've certainly thought about it ;) Unfortunately none of the azaleas around our house have interesting trunks.
 

Zournathan

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Here are some pictures of the grapevine after I dug it up and in it's new home. It had plenty of roots...either that or I did a terrible job of pulling out all the roots that belonged to the azalea growing next to it and the monkey grass growing around it :p
 

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Zournathan

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Pay no attention to the other terrible plants behind it :p
 

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Zournathan

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Well my grapevine seems to be doing alright. It rained all day for most of the days last week so I think it got a little more water than it wanted. Or at least that's my thoughts on why some of the leaves turned brown and fell of. Most of the leaves it still has aren't looking as healthy as the day it was collected, however it is putting on some new growth so I'm not to worried about it surviving. In the picture below you can make out a little of the new growth just above the cut wound. I'm starting to kick myself for trimming that back to flush. I was trying to minimize the reverse taper caused by the former trunk but instead I think I accented it :(.
 

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