Vines provide colorful camouflage and coverage

TIM MOREHOUSE, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Originally published April 28

Vines are attractive additions to any planting scheme. They offer shade and camouflage and soften a fence line.

Some vines -- such as the honeysuckles, morning glories and clematis -- also produce showy and fragrant blooms.

Apart from climbing roses (always beautiful), there are several deciduous vines that you might consider. When leafless, they allow a fence to dry out instead of trapping moisture against the wood with a year-round mantle of thick growth.

Annual vines are, in a manner of speaking, deciduous. They cover in a single season if you take care to prepare the soil, weed and help them to reach the fence as soon as they show the inclination to climb. Some suggestions include:

-Runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus) are useful climbers and offer both white and scarlet-flowered forms. The seeds are large and easy to plant as soon as the soil can be worked and is frost-free.

-Hop (Humulus japonicus) is another annual vine that often is used for its large, fast-growing leaves. There is a "golden hop" that is more interesting than the one grown for the brewery.

-Among my favorites are varieties of the morning glory (Ipomoea tricolor), which have large, pretty flowers and heart-shaped leaves. Wait until the ground is warm to plant morning glories, and don't fertilize the soil. My favorite is "Heavenly Blue."

-Clock vine (Thunbergia alata "Aurantiaca") is similar in habit to the morning glory, but its flowers are yellow with brown "eyes."

Long-lived deciduous vines are a longer-term solution; they come back without having to be replanted every spring. And they need little care aside from occasional pruning. If they bloom in the spring, prune after blooms have faded because some bloom on year-old wood.

Some of the best vines that climb by twining or by tendrils (as opposed to hold-fasts) include:

-Dutchman's pipe (Aristolochia durior). It has heart-shaped leaves with the texture of blotting paper. The flowers are odd, pipe-shaped affairs, the color of burned fried eggs, and they tend to hide behind the leaves. Though the leaves are large, they take up little room and will hang flat against their support to make a thick screen.

-Sweet autumn clematis (Clematis maximowicziana). This vine bears four-pointed star-like blooms from mid-August to frost. It can climb a fence in a single season and serve as a light screen if the tips are pinched back on their way up. Its flowers are fragrant. Plant it in a partly sunny area and keep the root run cool in the summer.

-Porcelain-berry vine (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata). These leaves are lustrous and green with a reddish to bronze cast in the offseason. The glory days for porcelain vine are late summer into fall, when clusters of turquoise berries the size of peas show up. Full sun or partial shade is recommended for best growth.

-The silver-lace vine (Polygonum aubertii). This vine has slightly arrow-shaped leaves that seem weedy and rather coarse, but the plant tolerates dry soil and blooms late in the year with a white, frothy cloud of tiny flowers. In the spring, the leaves are thick and a good green, and it grows quickly.

-Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica). This vine can grow 15-20 feet in a single season. Its fragrance will take your breath away. Try Lonicera x brownii "Mandarin" with bright orange-red and yellow throated blooms. It is irresistible to hummingbirds.

For a smaller, more compact honeysuckle, try "Serontina Florida" with creamy white, yellow and dark red fragrant flowers.

Write to Tim Morehouse, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH 45202. Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope. You also may reach him at www.getmoregarden.com.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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