I had seen one of these homemade trees in a friend's yard. She had planted four trumpet vines and trained them to grow around and up a post. Her husband made a "box" for the top of the post out of rebar and she laced the vine in and out of the box and then let it grow however it wanted. The end result looked just like a flowering tree.
Unfortunately, a strong wind that blew through here a couple of weeks ago up ended her tree. Not to be out done by wind nor weather, they planted a new post and this time chose a honeysuckle to be their future tree.
Their misfortune worked out for me. I had tried twice to start my own trumpet vine from seed.....to no avail. Since they were changing out the entire plant, I received a large root stock with vines already emerging. I couldn't have been happier.
I had just the spot and set a treated 4x4 in the ground. Since it wasn't as tall as I would have liked, I attached a couple of 2x4's to two sides of the post. Perfect.
Since it will take a while before the trumpet vine actually looks like a tree, I decided the top of my tree support needed something. I had just the thing, a weather vane!
The weather vane was a Mother's Day gift I received several years ago. It came with a weighted base and I kept it inside for a long time, nestled in with some house plants. A couple of years ago I moved it outdoors to the patio. I liked it there but the base was not heavy enough to keep a strong wind from blowing the whole thing over and after a time, the weather vane's flag was getting pretty beat up. That's what I liked about this weather vane in the first place, it looks like it belongs on top of a castle turret.
It may not be on top of a castle, but it's yard art and it works for me. As the vine grows, it will someday provide shade for the hostas that are planted around it. In my yard, I hosta have hostas.
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