In article
,
Billy Rose wrote:

"Bird House" gourds must be the Godzillas of the cucurbit family. Mine
(1) has gone nuts and I have been pruning it to keep it from hogging the
entire 7' X 7' trellis. Has anybody else experienced this? It is inches
from a kumquat tree and I presume from it's previous behavior, it will
wrap the tree up it up like a spider does a fly, if I let it. So I guess
what I'm asking is (1) Is this explosive growth normal?, (2) Does
pruning create any other problems?, (3) Am I right in thinking that I
need to control the vegetative growth so that the root structure won't
squeeze-out the other plants on the trellis ( a jiaogulan [vinous
ginseng, sorta] and a Tromba d'Albenga). Most of my soil, outside the
beds, is rock hard clay and this particular bed is 8' X 5' with yarrow
and pot marigolds.

I'm hoping the up-shot of it all will be fewer, larger gourds. Any
second opinions?

Birdhouse gourds given the right environment will take over the world.
;-) Don't worry about pruning them. I grew them for two years and ended
up with 10 years worth of bird houses and kept them under control.

The house wrens love them...

My honeysuckle survived the gourds.
Not so sure if it will survive the mustang grapes!
--
Peace, Om

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