Strong winds and hurricanes can shred a mirliton vine and stress it enough to delay or even stop flowering.
Michelle Inmpastato Glore discovered an ingenious way to inexpensively and quickly protect the vine from winds: netting.
With her young plants, she sandwiches them between two layers of netting and secures it to the trellis on both sides with clips. She pushes the tips of the clips through both sides so they hold the vine snuggly but not so tight that it breaks the stems.
To protect her large, mature vine, she wraps the vine with netting on both sides and secures it with velcro and or plastic tape.
Both vines survived gusts of 20 mph, and the large vine should have sustained gusts up to 70 mph.
The netting comes in many sizes at Tractor Supply and other stores, including this large roll for big vines.
New plant sandwiched in with netting clipped to trellis.
Netting wrapped around large vine.
Garden netting.