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Fine Vines
We spend so much time assisting others with their landscape plants that we frequently neglect our own. Like a fine chef in an up-scale restaurant who orders pizza on a day off, it can be difficult to find the motivation after work to to baby and nurture high maintenance plants. Regular irrigation, dead heading, shape pruning, and time specific PH adjustments often go unattended at our homes (though we advise clients all the time how to accomplish these things). The result? The trials of life. Survival of the fittest. Most of the plants in our landscapes are tough as nails, naturalized, and they like it that way.
Below are three vine options that all busy people should consider growing in their landscape. Let’s call them ‘Fine Vines’ because they meet the following conditions:
- thriving on neglect,
- showing off in the fall,
- and providing lush vigorous growth
1. Sweet Autumn Clematis
Clematis terniflora (paniculata)
Not all clematis are created equal. Some of the newer hybrid introductions, with their giant cotton-candy vivid colors, can be remarkably high maintenance. Not so with Sweet Autumn Clematis. Vigorous in full sun to part shade, this species easily climbs 15′ along a fence or up a trellis with minimum fuss. The clean foliage is glossy green and not bothered by common pests. Sometimes, juvenile rabbits will snip the green shoots near ground level in the spring, but Sweet Autumn quickly rebounds. In late-August flowering begins. Clouds of delicate star-shaped white flowers, heavily jasmine scented, cover the top third. In late-September when flowering ceases, feathery seed heads emerge and provide another month of decorative interest. Sweet Autumn remains herbaceous, so it's easy to clean up in March (leave the spent vines up through the cold part of winter). Spring growth, where blooms appear, leap up from the crown. Like all her botanical sisters, this clematis needs cool, evenly moist soil in her root zone. A large rock at her base does the trick. Learn more about Sweet Autumn Clematis.
2. American Bittersweet
Celastrus scandens
This Wisconsin native is woody and tough. Found on rich, well-drained woodland soils in the wild, American Bittersweet can be over an inch in diameter at the base and get over 30 feet high. It twines and climbs other vegetation without support and can kill saplings in the woods by restricting their growth. Sound tough enough yet? Don’t be intimidated. In the landscape, American Bittersweet is actually well behaved as long as it has average moisture and a structure to climb. The flowers are insignificant looking but subtly and sweetly fragrant. A mid-June garden surprise. The dark green foliage is full and lush. In the fall, clusters of orange fruit capsules (filled with red seeds) form in bunches at the growing tips. The fruits are poisonous to us - American Bittersweet was used by Native Americans to induce vomiting - but are highly desirable to birds. Florists love them too as the fruit capsules are showy and long lasting indoors. American Bittersweet is dioecious so you need to have both male and female plants nearby to get the great fruit. We often carry cultivars that have male and female parts present in most of its flowers, which means they will set fruit on their own. If space is limited, go with the Autumn Revolution™ cultivar. Learn more about American Bittersweet.
3. Summer Cascade Wisteria
Wisteria macrostachya ‘Betty Matthews’
If ever you have sat beside or strolled beneath a Wisteria in full bloom, we need write anything else to recommend this plant. Stunning is the most common adjective to describe it. Deservedly so. Summer Cascade is a selection developed in Minnesota - read: reliably cold hardy-and is draped in fragrant chains of lavender and powder blue flowers in June. In late-fall, interesting seed pods appear. If left on the vines to dry through the winter, the pods will pop open the following spring forcefully shooting pea-sized seeds a remarkable distance away. Not many Wisteria will reliably flower in Northern regions. Summer Cascade is one of the best.
