Vines with volunteer spirit

In addition to the vines I wrote about two weeks ago that I chose and planted, I’ve got several climbers growing in the yard that showed up on their own. The most useful of these volunteers is Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata), the vine that gave the Ivy League its name.

Boston ivy 

    Our Boston ivy appeared on the fence that divides us from our neighbors to the south. It keeps the fence covered in green leaves through the growing season. It’s also acting as a groundcover in a corner where nothing else will grow. 

Boston ivy covers the ground in the dense, dry shade of Norway spruces

The three-pointed bright green leaves turn yellow to scarlet to red-purple in fall. It attaches to supports with holdfasts, sticky discs on the ends of its tendrils, and reportedly grows to 50 feet long. When I follow a shoot I want to remove from a bed or a tree trunk, I can testify that it reaches that length in my yard.

Boston ivy's romantic fall color

    The secret to this vine’s success is that birds like to eat the blue-black berries; Boston ivy is in the grape family. A native of Asia, not New England, the vine has spread around the area as birds drop seeds in favorable growing spots. I don’t regret having it in my garden, because I’d be hard put to find another vine that would cover that fence so thoroughly with so little help from me.

    Two other members of the grape family have also found a place in the yard. I recently spent some sweaty hours pulling wild grape canes (Vitis vinifera subsp. sylvestris) off the shrubs that overhang another section of the same fence. The vines had rooted behind a neighbor’s shed. 

Wild grapes climbing a truck-sized Catawba rhododendron

By the time I noticed them on an infrequent visit to check for places a new puppy could tunnel under the fence, they’d reached far over my head. I had to cut back the leatherleaf viburnum branches (Viburnum rhytidophyllum) that supported them and pull and hack off the vines that came down with them. 

    Wild grapes are nice looking, but I didn’t want their shade to kill the shrubs, and they were bidding fair to take over a large section of the canopy in our yard. Like Boston ivy, they’re imports, in this case from the Mediterranean, and like it they’re spread by birds. I’ll have to remember to be vigilant about checking every year to cut them back as they continue venturing over the fence.

    The third grape relative I’ve found in the garden is Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia, named for the five leaflets that make up its leaves), a cousin of Boston ivy. So far I’m only seeing little patches in uncultivated spots. 

Virginia creeper getting started in a shady area

I welcome this vine because it’s a native and because I love its bright red fall color. When we replace a rotting wooden fence with chain link later this month, I could move one of the young vines to the fence line to create some quick visual screening.

Virginia creeperr's autumn splendor-photo Moralist

Want to see the vines in their fall colors? Sign up here with Newton Community Education for a hands-on sustainable gardening course in my yard Saturdays October 26 and November 2.