Vines

A vine is any plant with a trailing growth habit. Vines are great for adding color and texture to fences, walls, and privacy screens, without adding too much volume to your yard. Below is a list of popular vines, including fruiting vines, flowering vines, and vines that simply will provide some green to your landscape.

Types of vines

Vines, although they may all look relatively similar, have unique ways of attaching to support structures, including:

Twining Vines
New growth produced by these plants will twist or spiral as it gets longer, allowing it to coil around pretty much anything, including small-diameter poles, structures, or even nearby plants. Almost all twining vines make too tight of a spiral to successfully climb up larger posts, poles, or fences, and will need to be supported by cord or wire.

Vines with Tendrils
These vines produce growths along the stems or at leaf tips and will wrap around anything within their reach, including wire and other vines (or itself). Tendrils will grow out straight until they make contact with something, and then contract into a spiral. Provide these vines with structures that have narrow parts to cling on to.

Clinging Vines
Growths along stems on these vines attach to flat surfaces. Some vines have tendrils with suction discs at their tips, and others have claw-like appendages that hook into small crevices or irregularities in flat surfaces. A third type of clinging vine has aerial rootlets along stems that grip everything except completely smooth surfaces. These devices used for clinging to surfaces are collectively called holdfasts, and they can cause damage to brick, wood, concrete, and other building materials.

Vines that Need Tying
There are some vines and vining-type shrubs that do not have a means of attaching to a structure by themselves, and will need some guidance to vine upwards. Naturally, they will thread their way through and over other ground-hugging plants to hold their stems in place. A few of these vines, such as climbing roses, will have thorns on their stems, which helps a bit to hold them in place.

A vine, put simply, is a flexible shrub that does not stop extending its growth. They can be used to frame entryways with drama and color, and to decorate other structures. As vines grow, it will continue getting taller and longer, stopped only through mechanical means like pruning. Vines offer colorful foliage, edible berries or fruit, and beautiful flowers, and are welcome additions to any garden.