"Ah! The vine! One is exalted even by the sound of that word. It is so beautiful ... so cool and pure. It is like a soft high note blown on a far-off flute."Down The Garden Path
Beverley Nichols
I grow several vines on purpose and a few unwelcome ones bestowed by Mother Nature. One species starts out very shrub-like, another twines, some are annuals. Some thrive and bloom in shade and some will grow but not flower. My garden would be incomplete without the soft high notes of vines.
Q: When Is A Vine A Shrub?
A: When it is Euonymus fortunei
In my USDA zone 7 garden, I have two representatives of this species, a member of the Celastraceae family, consisting of about 50 genera and 800 species of trees and shrubs that are sometimes climbing or vining.
Originating in temperate Asia (China, Japan and Korea) and introduced to the US from China in 1907, E. fortunei, (climbing euonymus, winter-creeper or evergreen bittersweet) is one who is sometimes an evergreen shrub and sometimes a trailing or climbing vine, depending on how you treat it. If you prune it to maintain the shrub form, it will mound from one to three feet (30 cm - 1 M). If it finds solid support, it will climb by means of aerial rootlets, similar to ivy (Hedera helix), up to seventy feet (21 m). If not pruned nor allowed to climb, it will root along the stems where they touch soil.
Rated hardy from USDA zones 4 to 9, these are not very picky plants. They prefer a nice, light, well drained soil but will grow in most types of soil and a wide pH range, in sun to part shade. They become very thin and straggly in very deep shade, I've found. Their only serious pest is Euonymous scale. I've not seen it on this species, although another I once had was plagued with it until the deer put it permanently out of its misery by eating it to the ground.
Although I've not noticed flowering on any of mine, several varieties do produce an inflorescence composed of many tiny pale creamy green flowers. I have also read that some have been bred for their pink capsuled fruit that splits to expose orange seeds, but I have not been able to find out which ones are noted for this feature.
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