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Old 10-03-2003, 01:44 AM
paghat
 
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Default Need shade loving flowering vine - NC

This "Moonlight Vine" does very well in partial shade:
http://www.paghat.com/moonlightvine.html
It's a relative of hydrangea. It is somewhat slow-growing for the first
three years (though fast growing compared to the regular climbing
hydrangea), but at some point when it's gotten its roots well down, it
will really take off. Exceedingly pretty even as a young small vine, but
won't flower until large. Self-clings to walls or fences by its very short
hairs along the vines, but does not root inward, so not harmful to
masontry or houses.

This one also does well in shade:
http://www.paghat.com/akebia.html
I have several akebia, some in full sunlight & some on an arbor with
indirect sun. The vines with more shade are much densely leafy, but the
ones in the sun despite looking scruffier produced fruits the size of a
child's shoe, shown he
http://www.paghat.com/akebiafruit.html

Euonymus fortunei is like English ivy in that it'll thrive in either sun
or shade. Can also be invasive, but there are many cultivars not the least
bit invasive. The cultivars range from dwarfs that will never really
become vines but will remain very short things, to small vines, to large
vines. I've a page about it he
http://www.paghat.com/wintercreeper.html
though the one I have is not a vining form.

Other vines that either prefer or at least succeed in shade include
Porcelain Vine, Dutchman's Pipe, some types of honeysuckle such as
Lonicera x heckrottii "Gold Flame", bittersweet vine (Celastrus scandens),
& Virginia creeper. Also some types of clematis (i.e., Clematis
paniculata), though most will only want shade for their roots & lower
vines & will climb high in order to bloom in sun. And of course English
Ivy. The many small-leafed cultivars & deeply cut leaf forms of ivy are
NOT invasive, & can even be extremely slow to establish, but hardier than
the dickens in even adverse locations of dry shade if it has to be. A rap
on non-invasive ultra-hardy ivy cultivars he
http://www.paghat.com/ivy.html

Last year I obtained a China Blue Vine (Holoellia coriacia) which was only
a small start maybe belly-high in its pot. It was completely evergreen
through its first winter, & though it's not yet a full year in the ground,
it already reaches the top of the garage, so almost as rapid in its growth
as the akebia, to which it is related. I really like it. It has akebia's
five-leaf leaf arrangement, but leatherier & very tough leaves. I haven't
yet seen it bloom yet, but expect to this year.

Evergreen climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea seemanni) has been climbing up its
trellis, too, growing way faster than the deciduous hydrangea, with smooth
shiny leathery leaves. Another evergreen climbing hydrangea has toothed
leaves, but the smooth H. seemanni is prettier & tidier I think. I put
mine in morning sun since it's a Mexican vine & what passes for shade in
Mexico could be a lot of sun on Puget Sound, but Heronswood has a big one
growing under Douglas firs in their exhibition garden, so it obviously
does just as nicely in NW shade. When Heronswood first started marketing
these for zone 8 there was some question whether they'd do perfectly well,
being from Mexico & unused to even mild frosts, but they turn out to be
completely hardy & completely evergreen here. As with other hydrangea
vines though, they take a few years to become very flowery. The price has
come so far down on them so rapidly, though, that it is not expensive to
buy a substantial specimen to start with.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/