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Jul 31, 2023

How to choose the right vine for your garden

Vines are workhorses in the garden, perfect for big jobs like covering an eyesore or throwing up a privacy screen. Sometimes they get off to a slow start, tending to follow a “first they sleep, then

Vines are workhorses in the garden, perfect for big jobs like covering an eyesore or throwing up a privacy screen. Sometimes they get off to a slow start, tending to follow a “first they sleep, then they creep, finally they leap” formula. Don’t get discouraged, though. Even the most rambunctious plants in the climbing kingdom can look puny until they’ve established the root system necessary to support all that growth aloft. Once that happens, these energetic, upwardly mobile plants have the potential to do your bidding (and then some) within a few years.

Vines come in the form of clingers, weavers, twiners or graspers, and they all prefer different types of support systems to move upward. They can get into a whole lot of mischief when allowed to grow unchecked, so it’s important to take care when choosing vines — and what they will climb — to save yourself hassles later (think toppled trellises or sagging arbors).

Clematis are a good example of relatively lightweight vines that climb by using their leaf stems to wrap around a support. Dan Long, the owner of Brushwood Nursery, a mail order specialty vine nursery near Athens, Ga., likes to tuck compact varieties, such as Baby Star and Bijou, into containers fitted with a slender, lightweight wire or wood obelisk. Anything with braces wider than half an inch will be difficult for a clematis to grasp. Larger clematis planted in the ground can create a lacy screen by climbing on wire, fishing line or slender lattice.

Passionflowers and many members of the pea family send out twining tendrils that grasp a support to move upward. Something slender, such as wire, is ideal. Or you can invite them to climb into another plant, such as an open-twigged shrub or a climbing rose. They have the potential to create an exquisite show with a wall of blossoms for a crescendo. But not all tendril climbers are polite company. Grapes can be weighty, grabbing onto and weighing down anything within reach, so it’s best to plan to give them a substantial arbor of their own.

Keep these rude, aggressive plants out of your garden

Vines that snake up by wrapping their stems around their support — known as twiners — can be a wild card. Some are perfectly polite, such as star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides), which is hardy to Zone 8 with intoxicatingly fragrant, sweet-scented flowers. Twiners are perfectly equipped to quickly create dense screens for privacy and camouflaging purposes, and they do well with a trellis or latticework as a support. Long’s favorite solution for thwarting nosy neighbors is Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens “Margarita”), hardy to Zone 6, with deep evergreen foliage that is almost hidden behind a crop of sweetly fragrant, tubular yellow blossoms in spring.

Other twiners, such as honeysuckles, fall into the subcategory of squeezers. Their substantial twining stems have a python-like grip and may even squeeze out their support system, so they need something substantial to carry their weight. Try supports made with heavy metal.

Wisterias are another muscular, squeezing twiner that can become hulks. Japanese wisteria (Wisteria floribunda) and Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis) are legendary for their majestic streamers of showering blossoms, but they should be sited carefully. Both become sufficiently weighty to take down a porch, and they can send out wandering runners that can escape to conquer something several yards away. For a more polite variety, Michael Dosmann, keeper of living collections at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University in Boston (including the Leventritt Shrub and Vine Garden), suggests Wisteria frutescens, also known as Amethyst Falls. It’s a scaled down cultivar of the American native species with clusters of dangling purple flowers. Give it a sturdy support system, such as a strong stainless steel wire trellis or a pergola anchored with footings.

Several vines adhere to surfaces with rootlets or other appendages, so they do best with a surface that won’t peel if the rootlets are pulled free, such as a tree trunk or a concrete block wall. Long warns against the native Campsis radicans (trumpet vine), a native vine hardy to Zone 4 that has richly earned its nickname of hellvine. It extends by sending out suckers as well as potentially doing damage aloft with its grabbing aerial rootlets. This is one instance where the nonnative version might be a better choice; with peach-colored tubular flowers and hardy to Zone 6, Campsis grandiflora “Morning Calm” is more sedate.

I pair the shade-tolerant climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris) with the naked trunks of tall trees to create a showy display at eye level. Or Dosmann recommends planting its cousin, the late June-flowering Japanese hydrangea vine (Schizophragma hydrangeoides), especially cultivars “Moonlight” (with silvery gray leaves) and “Roseum” (with pink flowers). Both can be energetic while adhering to surfaces with rootlets, so he advises giving them strong, dedicated support, such as a stone wall, and keeping pruners on hand.

I have gambled on vines and found it well worth the effort. I planted the twining native coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) years ago and trained it to wrap the porch of my office studio, with a sturdy free-standing metal support. These days birds nest in it and hummingbirds sip from its tubular flowers. Best of all, thanks to its dense coverage, my neighbor cannot tell when I’m working at the computer into the wee hours of the night.

Tovah Martin is a gardener and freelance writer in Connecticut. Find her online at tovahmartin.com.