It seems to me that New England's country roads almost look as if they were bordered by a tropical jungle at this time of year. The vines that clamber up the trees and cloak them in cascades of greenery are everywhere, especially this year with all the rain. The most ubiquitous vine in our area is the fox grape. It is literally smothering the trees and shrubs on our dead-end road, climbing up the telephone poles and winding itself around the line, making waterfalls of dangling leaves.
I sat down and made a list off the top of my head of familiar vines and came up with twenty! Of course some of them weren't wild, such as roses and jasmine, and two you'd hardly want to think about - poison ivy and poison oak, but the rest were mostly ones that decorate our yards and our woods.
Vines have many uses. Their biggest asset is in transforming ugliness into beauty. Whether it's a honeysuckle hiding a jumble of old stones, or a silver lace vine decorating the propane tank, clothing any permanent structure with lush foliage can turn it from an eyesore into something attractive. Dutchman's Pipe can provide needed shade; wisteria fills the yard with fragrance; nasturtiums offer a wealth of cut flowers and mixings for the salad. Other vines can be planted to stop erosion on a steep bank, frame a garden vista or block out the prying eyes of a neighbor. Many different vines furnish food and protection for the birds.
When we bought our farm back in 1962, the house was covered in nubbly battleship gray stucco, sloughing off in places as if it had a bad skin disease. We couldn't wait to tear it all off and replace it with clapboards. Had it been in good shape, we might have had second thoughts. Painted white or a cheerful yellow with English ivy clambering up to make delicate patterns of green, it could have been very appealing.
English ivy is one of the few vines that is evergreen, and although it may be burned yellow by winter sunlight, it is quick to produce new leaves come spring. It is very handsome clinging to a stone wall or a brick house, but don't plant it to hide the foundation of a house covered in wooden clapboards or shingles. I made that mistake and within five years it had crept under the clapboards and was tearing them to pieces.
My other big vine mistake was planting bittersweet to hide the propane tank and at the same time have lots of those pretty red, orange-capped berries for Thanksgiving decorations. I dug up a root (bright orange) in the woods and planted it. That vine grew faster than Jack's beanstalk, but it never produced any berries.
Bittersweet vines are like humans, they're either male or female, and if you don't have both you're not going to get any berries. The female may blush and bloom each spring, but if there's no male around to provide her with pollen, it won't do her a bit of good. Whether it was a boy or a girl I never figured out, but my vine soon went berserk, strangling the propane tank so thoroughly that the gas man couldn't get near it, and running wild in the pasture beyond the fence. I tried uprooting it with no success, and finally had to poison it.
I replaced it with a Virginia creeper, also known as woodbine, a vine with much better manners. Clinging to old barns, stone walls and even propane tanks, this vine is quite well-behaved compared to bittersweet. Its flowers are only noticed by the bees, but its clusters of blue-black berries are conspicuous. In October these vines will turn a spectacular scarlet , easily competing with the surrounding trees.
Sad to say, there are many vines that have bad habits. The stems of climbing euonymus dug into the silo staves of the little round building we use as a sauna, their hairy roots clinging so fiercely that I literally tore away big slivers of wood when I tried to remove them. The hop vine Mrs. Thoman gave me years ago has a wonderful tangy smell when it's in fruit, but fortunately she warned me that it was a rampant grower so I planted it below the deck behind the guest house. By mid-summer it is sprawled across the deck like a sunbather.
The cucumber vine has delicate habits, climbing with gentle tendrils. Its lazy lacy white blooms sprawl over shrubs and hedges. The leaves are pale green and shaped a bit like English ivy. It is a very fast grower, and will cover an unsightly object in a white foam of flowers. The short, stubby fruits are also pale green and covered in delicate spines, not really resembling cucumbers at all. When they dry out in late fall what remains is an intricate network of veins the color of wheat.
For a great many years I was such a penny pincher that I never thought of actually buying a vine, just dug up whatever I could find in the wild. When I finally spent money to buy a white blossoming clematis called Henri, I realized what I was missing. My next store-bought vine was an autumn clematis. Its flowers are some of the most sweetly perfumed I know, as delightful as that of roses, and far easier to grow.
Sad to say, after three or four years my clematis lost its beautiful fragrance, a flaw that I've learned has occurred with the vines of several of my friends. I have tried talking to it, feeding it, pruning it back, but nothing seems to work. Last fall I cut it right down to the ground. It had no trouble growing right back up and looks quite beautiful, but I used to open the window by the bed and enjoy that sweet scent each September. If any of you have a suggestion as to how to get this vine to start smelling again, please let me know.
