Unfortunately, clinging vines have had a bad connotation deriving from the age-old fairy tale about Jack and the climbing beanstalk. But it is now time to put that child’s story away and discuss all the virtues of flowering vines and other attractive climbers and creepers. Flowering vines are used in landscape design for both aesthetic and utilitarian purposes. The versatility of flowering vines is truly impressive. A lot of that versatility has to do with the fact that vines can either stay close to the ground functioning as ground covers or climb and be used to decorate trellises, arbors, and fences.
Being that many flowering vines attract hummingbirds, a characteristic that appeals to both gardeners and bird watchers, whole garden landscapes are focused on this aspect now. Bird watchers desirous of attracting hummingbirds with flowers dripping with nectar need not sacrifice landscaping beauty. Climbing vines, to name one, the trumpet vine, adept at attracting our attention with its bright orange color, is also considered among the best to attract hummingbirds, hungry for the food that they bear. Magnifica Honeysuckle, a low creeper vine with large scarlet flowers also attracts hummingbirds. Many flowering vines are rich nectar sources for not only hummingbirds, but for butterflies too.
The vertical dimension is always an important consideration in landscape design to add interest and variety. Vertical relief to flat horizontal spaces can be welcomed with a framework structure like an arbor. Arbors work best when covered with vines offering periods of shade to plants below. Vines when grown on arbors can provide lovely doorways transitioning from one area of the landscape to another.
Chain-link fences are hardly appealing on their own, but when decorated with climbing flowering vines they can make quite a statement. They also can provide, in some cases, a form of a privacy screen sheltering your backyard activities from unwelcome outside attention. Vines can be used to soften and add interest to fences, walls and other hard spaces.
Some vine plants can serve a utilitarian function as ground covers for erosion control. Undesirable trees, posts, and poles can be transformed using vines to alter their form, texture and color.
Vines can be separated into three basic types: clinging, twining, and sprawling. Clinging vines attach to surfaces using specialized organs such as roots or tendrils. Twining vines climb by encircling upright vertical supports. They are often used on poles, vertical wires, or lattice structures. Most of these vines will spiral in only one direction characteristic of the species. Sprawling vines are basically shrubs that produce long runners, but have no means of attaching themselves to a support. So this type of vine needs to be manually wound around a support or braced up in some way. They usually become woody and self-supporting with age.
