Vines are versatile and unique landscape plants. They can soften and link architectural structures such as pergolas, arbors, buildings, fences and arches to the gardens around them. They can provide shade, privacy, flowers, ground covers, edible or attractive fruit, fragrance and food for wildlife. No other group of plants can be used to create the same effects. It would be hard to imagine a well-planted landscape that doesn't use vines somewhere.
Up, up and away
It's important to know that vines climb in two distinct ways: by twining and by clinging.
Twining vines climb by wrapping their stems, leaves or tendrils around a support. They must have string, wire, latticework, trellises, thin poles or other support structures to twist around or weave themselves into.
Clinging vines can attach themselves to flat surfaces using aerial roots that grow from their stems or special structures called holdfasts. They are useful for covering walls without having to build supports.
Twining vines typically are easier to control.
Since vines don't have to devote effort and energy to producing strong stems to hold them upright, they use their energy to grow outward. Vines are among the fastest growing landscape plants. In fact, they have no self control at all. Keep this in mind when considering using them in your yard.
When it comes to training vines, gardeners often do not realize how important it is to direct growth from the time the vine is planted and throughout its life in the garden. How the vine is trained depends on how it climbs, clinging or twining, and what the gardener is trying to accomplish.
An important characteristic in vine growth is that they go straight up to get as tall as possible as fast as possible. That's because, in nature, the faster and higher a vine grows, the sooner it reaches more light. So, this characteristic is linked to how well a vine can compete and survive. Sometimes a gardener will encourage this characteristic. When training a vine on an arbor, for instance, it is desirable for the vine to rapidly reach the top and grow over the structure to provide shade below.
In many other situations, this characteristic must be modified. When training a vine on a fence, trellis arch or lattice panel, it is often desirable for the vine to be lush and full from the ground up. Many gardeners training vines on trellises are dismayed to find that the leaves are all at the top, with nothing but ugly bare stems on the lower part of the plant. Once that has occurred, there is little you can practically do to correct it. You must prevent it by training the vine from an early stage.
Take the example of a vine planted at the base of a lattice panel. Once in the ground, the vine will rapidly begin to grow straight up the lattice until it reaches the top. The typical gardener will simply start to prune back the excessive growth at the top. This creates a full, bushy, top-heavy vine and leaves the lower portion of the lattice with little or no attractive foliage.
To prevent this, start training the vine as soon as it is planted. Weave stems horizontally along the bottom of the lattice panel. As the vine begins to grow upward, unwrap the vine and force it to grow sideways by weaving it horizontally through the latticework. As you continue to do this over time, you will create a vine that is full and attractive on the lower part of the panel as well as on the upper portion.
Once the vine reaches the top of the lattice, don't just cut it back. Take the long stems waving in the air, and weave them back down the panel. That will help fill in the top without creating the thick, bushy top that pruning would create. It works the same on chain link fences or trellises.
For clinging vines, the approach is different. When the vine is planted, it will not immediately cling to a support. But as new growth occurs, the vine will grab the surface and start to rapidly grow upward. You cannot pull it from the surface and try to redirect its grow as with twining vines, so here's what you need to do instead.
Once the vine has attached to the surface, let it grow for six to 12 inches and then pinch the tip. That will encourage the vine to branch out at that point. Once the new shoots have grown a few inches, pinch them as well, and they will branch out. This will help create a fuller look at the bottom of the surface to be covered.
By pinching the growing tips regularly, you delay the vine getting to the top, but you will get much better coverage in the long run.
If you do a good job of training your vine for the first few years, you will find that it pays off in the appearance. This is especially important when dealing with perennial vines that will grow in the garden for many years, but the training principles outlined here can also be used on annual vines, such as blue pea vine, cypress vine, morning glory and hyacinth bean.