Two simple projects involving twine

It is one of those mornings where the sun is barely up and just lifting the camera causes me to break out in a sweat. Warm, still, and humid. Very humid. Not nice. So I'll just do a couple of easy projects involving twine -- not much work, so less chance of soaking my shirt, right?

The first involves cypress vines that are growing in this blue pot on the patio. I had intended to put something in this pot but never found just the right plant, and then the cypress vines started growing and it seemed a shame to yank them out. So I'll help them along instead.

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Since they're growing at the base of the pergola support, I'll just run some twine up the support for them to climb. Once they get to the top they can spread out and help the hyacinth bean and Spanish flag vines provide shade for the patio.

I'll use these eye bolts:

I need to drill some pilot holes for them but I don't want to run an extension cord, and since I need a new cordless drill, it's all up to the hand drill:

That's right, not a hand-held power drill, but a hand-powered drill. It's pretty easy work although the drill bit gets stuck a couple of times, but the eye bolts are in:

I'll tie the twine with the loops in the vertical position:

Although I'll pull the twine as taut as I can, it will still be a little loose. By tying with the loops vertical, I can turn the loops down a bit to help tighten it:

Then it's just a matter of untangling the vines from my other plants and wrapping them around the twine. By the way, I decided on a natural twine since I don't need it to last more than a few months, and I can just cut it down and throw it on the compost pile in the fall (or spring -- whenever I get around to pulling down the dead vines).

After unwrapping from the plants and wrapping around the twine, the vines are about 6' tall already!

It doesn't look very nice right now, but give it a day or two for the leaves to reorient themselves to the light and it will look great. These vines are quite vigorous. They're actually starting to take over the patio a bit:

So I'm going to have to get more aggressive with these. As cool as it looks climbing up the chair, this Spanish flag vine will soon completely cover it, and I'd rather have the chair clear and available for sitting.

So looks like I have some vine pulling in my future.


On to the second project, which is even easier than the first:

These drooping Agastache. The heavy rains we've had lately have really helped these flop over. The bees don't mind but I'm just going to tie some twine around the posts to help hold them up (the plants, not the posts):

Here's a tip: if you're going to do a project that involves wrapping twine or string around something and you'll need to cut the twine in order to tie things off, make sure your twine-cutting tool is within reach of the endpoint. Don't leave it at the starting point. Grrr.

Again, it doesn't look great because a lot of the leaves are oriented in the wrong direction. Once they adjust it will stop looking like I just tied all of these up and will look much nicer.

So that's the end of my morning's projects, except for watering as it will be in the mid-90's today.Were these projects easy enough to keep me from getting too wet? Well, they were, but the weather is just not conducive to not sweating, so I'm drenched.

As warm, sticky, and miserable as it is this morning, it's still my favorite time to be in the garden.