Also known as bottle gourd, calabash, or birdhouse gourd, it grows in a variety of shapes and sizes, and produces fruit that has been used for millennia in the crafting of containers, dishes, and other useful implements. Its vining branches can be trained on trellises to grow a cool, shaded hideaway from the kids, and the dangling fruit can be harvested and dried, then decorated and hollowed out to make homes for wild birds.
Gourd vines will trail along the ground if no support such as a fence or trellis is supplied, but the fruit will often be misshapen and less perfect. It is strongly recommended that the gourds be grown on a strong arbor consisting of posts and several overhead crosspieces. The fruit will then hang down below the lattice.
