{"id":3180,"date":"2020-09-14T06:19:49","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T14:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=3180"},"modified":"2020-09-14T06:19:49","modified_gmt":"2020-09-14T14:19:49","slug":"surprise-gourd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/surprise-gourd\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise Gourd"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gourd\"<\/a>Late last spring I noticed a large leaf sprouting in my front garden.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t quite look like a weed, but it also didn\u2019t look like anything that I had planted intentionally.\u00a0 Curiosity coupled with an inclination to benign neglect led me to leave the plant alone.\u00a0 It rewarded my non-efforts by growing\u2026and growing and growing.<\/p>\n

My mystery garden guest was clearly a vine.\u00a0 It made its way gradually across the bed, extending its stems in all four directions.\u00a0 When it got to the medium-size osmanthus shrub, it began clambering upward, clinging to the branches.\u00a0 It did the same thing with the holly that bounds the bed.\u00a0 Shoots began curling out into the grass and I had to turn them back towards the middle of the bed.<\/p>\n

As the vine expanded, it sprouted more giant leaves, some of which were eight inches across.\u00a0 Large yellow\/orange trumpet-shaped blooms burst forth.\u00a0 It became clear to me that my serendipitous plant was part of the cucurbit or squash family.\u00a0 For awhile I assumed that the large leaves presaged a pumpkin of some kind.\u00a0 I was wrong.\u00a0\u00a0 Each flower lasted for exactly one day before wilting back.\u00a0 Some of the spent blossoms sported tiny fruits at their bases.\u00a0 I knew that these were the female, fruit-producing flowers and the little fruits were clearly ornamental gourds.<\/p>\n

I was intrigued.\u00a0 Years ago I tried to grow ornamental gourds and failed because the local pollinators ignored the flowers and I was too busy to do the job by hand.\u00a0 My mystery gourd flowers were clearly being pollinated, probably because they were growing right next to a large butterfly bush that draws pollinators by the score.<\/p>\n

How did the mystery gourd get to my front bed?\u00a0 I suspect it was a case of squirrel landscaping, a process that generally results in a plethora of unwanted chestnut and oak seedlings.\u00a0 Last fall, I decorated my front porch with a basket of ornamental gourds from the garden center.\u00a0 Eventually a squirrel made off with one of them.\u00a0 I suspect that as it ate the gourd, some of the seeds escaped.\u00a0 The ground was fertile enough and the climate congenial enough to induce germination.\u00a0 My gourd vine was born.<\/p>\n

When the tiny gourds started to appear, I started research.\u00a0 Ornamental gourds fall into two species: Lagenaria and Cucurbita.\u00a0 Lagenaria gourds are \u201chard shelled\u201d and generally green, sometimes accented with white.\u00a0 Cucurbita gourds are described as \u201csoft shelled\u201d, though the skins are quite firm.<\/p>\n

If you have seen the large green and white \u201cswan\u201d gourds, you have seen one of the hard-shelled types.\u00a0 My gourds, which are rounded and warty, featuring either short or elongated handles or necks, are soft-shelled types.\u00a0 These come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colors, including shades of green, white, cream, yellow and golden\/orange.\u00a0 Both hard and soft-shelled varieties can be dried for use in crafts and decorations.<\/p>\n

As my gourds began to mature, they took on colors.\u00a0 One, nestled close to the ground, is green and white striped.\u00a0 Another, hanging from the holly tree, features green and pale yellow stripes, with a handle or neck that is about twice the height of the rounded base.\u00a0 Its appearance made me wonder whether hanging results in gourds with longer handles.<\/p>\n

I discovered that optimal planting situations for ornamental gourds include sunny locales.\u00a0 Intentional gourd-growers plant one or two seeds in a six-inch tall hill of soil, keeping at least four feet between hills.\u00a0 Those who grow a lot of gourds also separate the rows by six feet and train the young vines up trellises or other man-made supports.<\/p>\n

I did none of those things.\u00a0 The squirrel, intent on stuffing itself, picked the location and clearly knew nothing about hilling up the plantings.\u00a0 Mother Nature provided the supports.<\/p>\n

The vine continues to extend outward and form new flowers each day.\u00a0 Every couple of days I discover a new young gourd.\u00a0 Now that the stems have dried out on the oldest fruits, I have harvested several of them.\u00a0 It looks as though there will be many more in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

It is too late to plant ornamental gourds this year, as they take about 120 days to grow from seed to mature gourds.\u00a0 In the spring you can purchase packets of either mixed or single varieties and start them inside or outside after all danger of frost has passed.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to do that, I suggest arranging a lovely basket of gourds on your porch.\u00a0 Wait for one of the million neighborhood squirrels to steal a gourd and hope that the squirrel\u2019s autumnal meal will provide you with a late summer serendipity vine like mine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late last spring I noticed a large leaf sprouting in my front garden.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t quite look like a weed, but it also didn\u2019t look like anything that I had planted intentionally.\u00a0 Curiosity coupled with an inclination to benign neglect led me to leave the plant alone.\u00a0 It rewarded my non-efforts by growing\u2026and growing and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[2375,2377,2378,2374,2379,2376,2380],"class_list":["post-3180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-cucurbit-family","tag-cucurbita","tag-garden-sruprises","tag-gourds","tag-hard-shell-gourds","tag-lagenaria","tag-soft-shell-gourds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3182,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3180\/revisions\/3182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}