Tecomaria capensis

Cape honeysuckle is a rangy, vine-like evergreen shrub from southern Africa, grown for glossy, compound leaves like a trumpet vine's and, above all, for the showy clusters of orange to orange-red tubular flowers that hummingbirds and, in the wild, sunbirds cannot resist. A member of the trumpet-vine family, Bignoniaceae, the plant can be trained up a support, clipped into a loose informal hedge, or left to cascade over a wall or bank.

The botanical name means, simply, from the Cape, for the Cape of southern Africa where the shrub grows wild. Fast, evergreen, and heat-loving, Cape honeysuckle flowers over a long season through the warm months, and often nearly year round in frost-free gardens, bringing hot color and a steady stream of nectar-feeding birds and butterflies to a subtropical planting.

In its homeland the plant carries a long place in traditional medicine. Southern African and Zulu healers used the bark to ease pain and sleeplessness, to bring down fevers, and to treat chest complaints such as bronchitis, along with stomach pains, diarrhea, and dysentery, while the leaves were turned to for digestive upsets, a double life as garden ornamental and country remedy common among the useful plants of the region.

In the garden, give Cape honeysuckle full sun to part shade, rich soil, and ample water, and the plant will thrive through hot summers and flower generously. Use the shrub as a fast screen, an informal hedge, a bank cover, or a trained vine near a patio where the hummingbird traffic can be watched. Where winters brush freezing, cut back frost-killed tops, mound coarse sand and pine straw over the stubs, and remove the covering as the weather warms so new shoots can emerge. Vigorous enough to spread in frost-free climates, so site where the roaming can be managed.