Vines - Part 1

want to attract them, this vine is a good one to plant. There are other cultivars, including 'Sulphurea', who has yellow flowers. The species produces a berry-like fruit that turns bright red in fall, but I haven't seen many on my cultivar.

The foliage is fascinating. The leaves immediately under a flower cluster completely encircle the stem; below this, they elongate to oval oblongs. New foliage has a purplish tint before turning the normal bluish green.

This is a twining vine and requires a framework to climb. Mine seems quite happy on a section of stock treated trellis attached to the soffit of the house. You have to encourage it to find the trellis and climb it, but once it gets going it will clamber through the openings. The species can grow from ten to twenty feet (3 - 6M) or more; mine's gotten about twelve feet (3.65m) high in ten years.

There are other honeysuckles worth growing, but, for heaven's sake, do not go out and buy Lonicera japonica, particularly 'Halliana' or Hall's Variety, which I note some nurseries actually carry and charge money for. This is a most pernicious weed, despite its lovely and very fragrant flowers. It will take over the world if you don't watch it every minute. It has strangled half my woods as well as most woodland on the east coast.

Most honeysuckles are easily propagated by seeds or cuttings. I have not tried seed or even cuttings, but did find that one stem on mine had started to root down where it hit ground; dug it up and potted it on with good success.

Twining

Vines use three basic means of climbing. They either clamber through their supports, twining sinuous branches around them, attach tendrils or leaf stalks to the support or cling by small disks or root-like hold-fasts. This scan shows the second means of twining where seemingly delicate tendrils reach out in widening circles until they come in contact with something (either a string, trellis, another plant or themselves). Once contact is made, the tendril encircles what it's found in an iron grasp. This bending or turning response to touching something is called thigmotropism - a most marvelous word!

Next time, more vines...see ya' later!

More Information

• To learn more about the climbing habits of vines, read Marie Hofer's article, The Vagaries of Climbing Vines on the Fine Gardening website. You'll
  The copyright of the article Vines - Part 1 in Shade Gardening is owned by Marge Talt. Permission to republish Vines - Part 1 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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