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Clinging To Tradition

They creep and tangle and overwhelm, yet we embrace those vines

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MIKE SIEGEL / SEATTLE TIMES FILE, 2005 Even wisteria, the most rapacious of twining vines, can be trained -- if you apply skill and vigilance -- into an open, airy framework. This good example of a wisteria is in the West Seattle garden of Ron Williams.

Where to go for help


In the quest for well-trained vines, build an arbor or other support twice as sturdy as you think it need be, sharpen your pruners, stock up on twine and keep these books close at hand:

• "Cass Turnbull's Guide to Pruning" (Sasquatch Books, 2006, $17.95).

• "The American Horticultural Society Pruning and Training: A Fully Illustrated Plant-by-Plant Manual," by Christopher Brickell, (DK Publishing, 1996, $35).

• "Gardening with Clematis: Design and Cultivation," by Linda Beutler (Timber Press, 2004, $34.95).

I'll be the first to admit it: Vines are intimidating. Not only do their flailing shoots and tendrils seem animated by nothing less than nature's own force field, but other gardeners tend to judge your garden by how tidily your vines are laced through arbors and along fences. It's true, vines are the ultimate test of plantsmanship; it's a tradition.

When I'm faced with a tangle of kiwi, honeysuckle or, worse yet, an akebia vine that has tried to colonize my entire garden, I can't help but picture eager gardeners-in-training at one of those prestigious English horticultural colleges. A teacher in a bowler hat is advising his students to sharpen their clippers for Vines 101, which is a year-long course. I never took it, nor have many of us in the modern world. But boy, do we need it.

And here's why. Vines are known as the greedy opportunists of the plant world for good reason. I swear their roots go all the way into the center of the earth to suck up volcanic energy to explode above ground — in our gardens.

Here are a few vine facts that send gardeners reeling to form support groups:

• Vines lack their own woody backbones, so are forced to become "mechanical parasites" that clamber up other plants or structures.

• Because their photosynthetic energy need not be spent on forming woody branches or trunks, vines lavish it all on producing leaves to a degree unmatched among terrestrial plants.

• Scientists tell us that while a forest might consist of only 5 percent vines, their leaves can make up 40 percent of that forest's biomass. No wonder we feel nervous about the wisteria swallowing the front of our house.

Where to go for help


In the quest for well-trained vines, build an arbor or other support twice as sturdy as you think it need be, sharpen your pruners, stock up on twine and keep these books close at hand:

• "Cass Turnbull's Guide to Pruning" (Sasquatch Books, 2006, $17.95).

• "The American Horticultural Society Pruning and Training: A Fully Illustrated Plant-by-Plant Manual," by Christopher Brickell, (DK Publishing, 1996, $35).

• "Gardening with Clematis: Design and Cultivation," by Linda Beutler (Timber Press, 2004, $34.95).

• Here's my favorite vine fact: They thrive on carbon dioxide, and some people theorize that vines are feasting on our earth's rising levels of it to out-compete other plants.

• Vines are capable of reaching out to grab onto a scaffold and employ a variety of strategies to climb it. How do those sightless shoots find their way? Like moths, vines respond to hormones released into the air by their victims — oops, I mean by woody plants.

Have you ever pondered a tree trunk encased in vine and wondered how in the world all that vegetation sticks on there? Vines rely on a quartet of mechanisms to cling and hoist themselves skyward. Some, like roses and bougainvillea, attach themselves by tiny hooks or thorns. We're all too familiar with how ivy anchors itself with tenacious hairy rootlets that burrow into wood, so keep any vine with these suction cup-like appendages away from your house. Vines so endowed — and this includes Virginia creeper, trumpet vine and climbing hydrangea — can climb just about anything, including concrete walls.

Then there are clematis, kiwi and honeysuckle. Grapes and akebia have tendrils as tightly coiled as a slinky, yet far more delicate and responsive. All these twining vines need an open support system to twirl themselves about. Oddly, a grape vine's tendrils know to form a coil slightly narrower than the width of whatever they're climbing, so they don't slip down.

Despite all these warnings and worries, you can't help but admire the sheer life force of vines (except for bindweed, I've never yet admired a single shoot of bindweed). Climbers add laciness, flower, scent and verticality that is impossible to achieve with any other kind of plant. Yet it's the reckless abandon that compels us to plant yet another vine even when we know better. So how to deal?

First and foremost, before you put shovel to earth, understand the specific nature of whatever vine you let into your garden. Only then can you give it adequate support and training from the beginning, which is key to you controlling the vine rather than the other way 'round.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and author of "A Pattern Garden." Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.