Blue Monday: Flowering Vines

Happy Blue Monday Everyone! I hope this is a start to a wonderful week for everyone. Sally over at Smiling Sally's blog host this event every Monday. What a great way to get everyone in gear for the next week. I really enjoy this day. Be sure to pay Sally a visit, and check out all the other Blue Monday Post.

I love flowers of all kinds, but I have a great fondness for flowers that grow on the vine. Here is a shot I took of my Morning Glories blooming this summer.

I love the shades of blues the flowers bring to a morning. I think they are a very happy looking flower.

Here is Alisha posing in front of our house by the mailbox. I find that these Morning Glories vine rather nicely on my mailbox, and what a nice sight to greet our special mail carrier.
Also, keeping with the blue theme, Alisha has on her very expensive Abercrombie & Fitch blue jeans, and yes, we paid good money for jeans with holes in the knees. Boy have times changed from the days of Sears toughskin jeans with the double knees!! I better watch out, I am telling my age here.

This beauty is called a Passion Vine. The deep blue-violet flowers are so fragrant and beautiful. I planted one years ago, as food for the Gulf Fritillary butterfly caterpillars. It has done exceptionally well, and I have lots of new shoots come up each year. I usually transplant them elsewhere in my yard or give them away.

These are very hardy and you really need to commit to having them for a while, as the vines are very hard to kill. This is a natural food source for the caterpillars in our area and provides food in the leaves and vines for the caterpillars every year. Now if you enjoy the pretty flowers....you will have to put up with this....

Now, truth be told, I don't think these are a pretty sight.....yet. But is this not a small price to pay when you are enjoying these fragrant flowers all summer long? Not only for the beauty of the flowers, but the greatest beauty is yet to come.

This beautiful garden favorite called The Passion Vine has a very unique story about how it got its name and why. I really hope you find this as interesting as I do. Be sure to look again closely at the flowers as you read the description of the name. It is really neat.

"Passion" does not refer to love, but to the Christian theological icon of the
passion of Christ on the cross. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish
Christian missionaries discovered this flower and adopted its unique physical
structures, particularly the numbers of its various parts, as symbols of the
last days of Jesus Christ and especially the Crucifixion. For example: the
radial filaments which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to
flower were taken to represent the Crown of Thorns. The ten petals and sepals
can represent the ten faithful apostles. The top 3 stigmata can represent the 3
nails and the lower 5 anthers the 5 wounds. The flower has been given names
related to this symbolism throughout Europe since that time. In Spain, it is
known as Espina de Cristo (Christ's Thorn). In Germany it was once known as
Muttergottes-Schuzchen (Mother-of-God's Star). Wikipedia.

So I have to endure these ugly spinney caterpillars, which are the reason for planting the vines in the first place...for feeding and attracting the caterpillars who turn into beautiful butterflies.

And this is what my beautiful vines look like after the caterpillars have eaten at "The all-you-can-eat Vine Cafe" in my yard. Attractive right? Well, no worries, in the fall, just clip even with the ground, and in the spring, this plant comes right back.

Yes, this makes quite an attractive sight, when you end up with a yard full of these wonderful, beautiful butterflies.

It just does not get any better than this. I think the Passion Vine plant really lives up to it's name....Just like in the way God takes something not so attractive and once he has finished, it becomes a real beauty.

Lastly, I leave you with Sophie taking a nap. I think she has had enough of the back yard for today. And in keeping with the Blue Monday theme, she is sleeping in the bedroom which is painted blue. Happy Blue Monday.