# Growing native vines: how each one climbs and what support it needs

> The native vines for a trellis, fence, arbor or wall: what each can climb, which harm siding or young trees, when to prune them, and the invasive look-alikes.

Published 2026-11-09. Tags: What to plant, Planting. By Blue Whale Trees, a native tree nursery in the United States. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/growing-native-vines/

How a vine holds on decides what it can climb. Twiners such as the climbing honeysuckles, Carolina jessamine and American wisteria wind their stems around a support. They need wire, lattice or a slim post, and none can climb a flat wall. Grapes coil tendrils around wire and twigs, Virginia creeper and crossvine stick to brick and stone with pads on their tendrils, and trumpet creeper clings by rootlets. Those last three climb a wall unaided, and they can mar paint, siding and mortar.

![Virginia creeper in crimson fall leaf climbing a tan brick wall on both sides of a white-framed window](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/growing-native-vines-1-1000.jpg?v=6f7a53b3 "Virginia creeper on a brick house in Quebec City on October 21, 2017. Its tendrils end in sticky pads that hold it to brick with no trellis, and the pads are hard to remove.")
*Photo: Wilfredor, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAutumn_ivy_on_a_brick_building_in_Quebec_City.jpg))*

## The native vines and how each climbs

The table sorts the vines we grow by how each climbs. All grow in full sun or part shade, and most flower and fruit best in full sun. Four grow in shade too: Virginia creeper, crossvine, riverbank grape and limber honeysuckle. Without a support most sprawl, and Virginia creeper and Carolina jessamine make a [groundcover](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/low-native-shrubs-and-groundcovers/index.html.md) on a bank.

| Vine | Climbs by | Height, feet | Flowers | Fruit |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [American bittersweet](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-bittersweet/index.html.md) | Twining | 15–40 | May and June, bees | Capsules, August into winter, birds |
| [American wisteria](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-wisteria/index.html.md) | Twining | 15–30 | Purple, April to June, bumble bees | Pods, late summer |
| [Carolina jessamine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/carolina-jessamine/index.html.md) | Twining | 10–20 | Yellow, February to April, bees, hummingbirds | Capsules, September to November |
| [Grape honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/grape-honeysuckle/index.html.md) | Twining | 3–15 | Pale yellow, May and June, hummingbirds | Red berries, fall, birds |
| [Hairy honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/hairy-honeysuckle/index.html.md) | Twining | 3–16 | Yellow, June and July, bumble bees | Orange-red berries, September and October, birds |
| [Limber honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/limber-honeysuckle/index.html.md) | Twining | 3–10 | Yellow to red, May and June, hummingbirds | Red berries, July to September, birds |
| [Trumpet honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/trumpet-honeysuckle/index.html.md) | Twining | 10–20 | Red, March to July, hummingbirds | Red berries, July to September, birds |
| [Yellow honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/yellow-honeysuckle/index.html.md) | Twining | 10–20 | Yellow, April and May, hummingbirds | Orange-red berries, August and September, birds |
| [Fox grape](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/fox-grape/index.html.md) | Tendrils | 20–40 | May and June | Grapes, August to October, birds, mammals |
| [Maypop](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/maypop/index.html.md) | Tendrils | 6–25 | Fringed lavender, May to September, carpenter bees | Egg-sized fruit, July to October, birds, mammals |
| [Muscadine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/muscadine/index.html.md) | Tendrils | 30–90 | Late April to June | Grapes, August to October, birds, mammals |
| [Riverbank grape](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/riverbank-grape/index.html.md) | Tendrils | 35–75 | May and June, bees | Grapes, July to September, birds, mammals |
| [Summer grape](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/summer-grape/index.html.md) | Tendrils | 25–70 | May and June, bumblebees | Grapes, August to October, birds, mammals |
| [Crossvine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/crossvine/index.html.md) | Sticky pads | 30–50 | Orange and yellow, March to May, hummingbirds | Pods, late summer |
| [Virginia creeper](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/virginia-creeper/index.html.md) | Sticky pads | 30–50 | May to August, bees | Blue-black berries, August into winter, birds |
| [Trumpet creeper](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/trumpet-creeper/index.html.md) | Rootlets | 30–40 | Orange-red, June to September, hummingbirds | Pods, September to November |
| [Climbing prairie rose](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/climbing-prairie-rose/index.html.md) | Prickly canes | 3–15 | Pink, June and July, bees | Red hips, late summer and fall, birds |

## What each one needs to climb

Match the support to the vine:

- **Twining stems** wrap around wire, lattice, chain-link or a slim post, never a flat wall. Each kind twines one way, and American wisteria winds counterclockwise, so start a young vine that way.
- **Tendrils** coil around wire, twine or chain-link. Maypop climbs this way too, but its stems die to the ground each winter except where winters are mild, and its root suckers come up well past its support.
- **Sticky pads** let Virginia creeper and crossvine climb brick, stone, fences and bark with no trellis. Virginia creeper's pads are hard to remove and can ruin paint, and crossvine's can damage stucco.
- **Rootlets** let trumpet creeper grip bark, wood and stone, and its heavy vine needs a sturdy arbor or metal fence of its own.
- **Prickly canes** of climbing prairie rose hook onto a fence or an arbor, and the long canes need tying on.

![Maypop flower with a fringe of purple and white filaments, a green bud above it and a thin tendril curling at its left](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/growing-native-vines-2-1000.jpg?v=85ccd931 "Maypop in flower at Lake Louisa State Park, Florida, on May 13, 2011, a tendril curling at left. Its stems die to the ground in cold winters and grow back from the roots.")
*Photo: Hans Hillewaert, [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APassiflora_incarnata_%28habitus%29.jpg))*

[Climbing fetterbush](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/climbing-fetterbush/index.html.md), the only heath in the United States that climbs, runs up inside the bark of [pond cypress](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/pond-cypress/index.html.md) or [Atlantic white cedar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/atlantic-white-cedar/index.html.md). In a garden, tie its shoots to a post, or it stays a low shrub.

For muscadine grapes, a single wire 5 to 6 feet up is the easiest trellis to build and prune, and an arbor gives shade but fewer grapes:

> "Growing muscadine vines over a garden arch or a pergola can be aesthetically pleasing and provide shade, but if individual cordons are not maintained, management will be difficult, neglect is likely, and fruit production will decline." (NC State Extension, *Muscadine Grapes in the Home Garden*)

## Vines on houses and trees

Keep the pad and rootlet climbers off a house. They work between siding boards and keep the wood wet, and on any wall they find the gaps:

> "The vine can work its way into cracks and crevices, destroying masonry or pulling down window frames or gutters." (NC State Extension, *Extension Gardener Handbook*)

Let one cover a masonry wall only where it is to stay. The [planting-distance tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md?species=trumpet-creeper&near=house) gives each vine's distance from a wall, 3 feet for a honeysuckle and 10 for trumpet creeper.

Keep twiners and grapes off young trees and shrubs. A woody stem wound around a trunk can strangle it as the trunk thickens, and a grape can shade small trees until they die. Virginia creeper or crossvine can go up a large tree, since a vine clinging to a trunk does no harm unless it covers the leaves.

![Riverbank grape vines draped in a dense green blanket over small trees and shrubs at a woodland edge](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/growing-native-vines-3-1000.jpg?v=95e94007 "Riverbank grape over small trees and shrubs in Kitchener, Ontario, on September 22, 2018. A grape climbs whatever its tendrils reach, and its shade can kill small trees.")
*Photo: Ryan Hodnett, [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARiverbank_Grape_%28Vitis_riparia%29_-_Kitchener%2C_Ontario_2018-09-22_%2801%29.jpg))*

## When to prune

Spring and early summer bloomers are cut right after they flower: Carolina jessamine, crossvine, American wisteria and the honeysuckles. Wisteria's long shoots go back to about 6 inches, then again in winter to two or three buds.

Trumpet creeper flowers on [new wood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/glossary/index.html.md#old-wood-and-new-wood), so a hard cut in late winter costs no flowers. American bittersweet is pruned in early spring, climbing prairie rose in late winter or early spring. A muscadine fruits on shoots from last year's side shoots, so cut each side shoot back to two to four buds every winter.

## Male and female vines

The wild grapes, American bittersweet and climbing prairie rose grow as male and female plants, and only the females fruit. Plant three or more seedlings for a male and a female, and one male bittersweet serves six to nine females. Wild muscadines run mostly male, so plant three to five. Named muscadines with perfect flowers, such as 'Carlos' and 'Noble', fruit alone, but seedlings do not come true to them.

Maypop, trumpet creeper and yellow honeysuckle carry both male and female parts in each flower, yet set little or no fruit with their own pollen, so plant two or more seedlings from different parents. The [pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md?plants=riverbank-grape:3) counts the vines a planting needs.

## Telling the natives from their look-alikes

Three kinds we grow have invasive look-alikes from Asia:

- **Japanese honeysuckle** twines like the natives, but its stems are hollow inside, where every native honeysuckle's are solid.
- **Oriental bittersweet** fruits in small clusters all along the stem, where American bittersweet fruits only at the branch tips.
- **Chinese and Japanese wisteria** bloom as their leaves emerge, in clusters up to 20 inches long, with velvety pods. American wisteria blooms after its leaves unfold, in clusters 2 to 6 inches long, with smooth pods.

Clearing them is the subject of [invasive vines and shrubs](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/invasive-vines-and-shrubs/index.html.md). The grapes' poisonous look-alike is native [moonseed](https://bluewhaletrees.com/species/moonseed/index.html.md), which climbs without tendrils, has leaves with no teeth and holds one crescent-shaped seed in each berry. Virginia creeper's five leaflets tell it from the three of [poison ivy](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/poison-ivy-and-its-native-look-alikes/index.html.md), and the three trumpet vines are told apart in [trumpet creeper, crossvine or trumpet honeysuckle](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/trumpet-creeper-crossvine-or-trumpet-honeysuckle/index.html.md).

## Choosing a vine for your support

Start from the support you have:

- **A chain-link fence, wires or lattice:** a twining honeysuckle, Carolina jessamine, maypop or a grape.
- **A strong arbor or pergola:** American wisteria or trumpet creeper.
- **A brick or stone wall to be covered for good:** Virginia creeper or crossvine.
- **A shaded fence:** limber honeysuckle, crossvine or riverbank grape.

Blue Whale Trees grows every vine in the table from seed. The grapes and maypop are listed with our [nut and fruit trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/shop/nuts-fruit/index.html.md), and the rest with our [native shrubs](https://bluewhaletrees.com/shop/shrubs/index.html.md).

## Common questions

### What native vines grow in shade?

Virginia creeper, crossvine, riverbank grape and limber honeysuckle grow in shade. Virginia creeper colors best in sun, and the other three flower or fruit more there.

### Will Virginia creeper damage my house?

It can. Its sticky pads hold fast to brick and stone, are very hard to remove and can ruin paint. Plant it 5 feet from any wall it should not climb.

### Do you need two grape vines to get grapes?

For wild grapes, yes: each vine is male or female and only the females bear, so plant three or more seedlings. A named muscadine with perfect flowers, such as 'Carlos', fruits alone.

### How long does American wisteria take to bloom?

Some flower in their second or third year, but many wait 5 to 10 years, and seed-grown vines can take longer. Too much shade or fertilizer delays it further.

## Sources

- [Vines for Maryland Gardens](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/vines-maryland-gardens): University of Maryland Extension: vines that cling, grab with tendrils, twine or sprawl, holdfasts that damage wood siding unless trained to a separate trellis, twining around a post that is not too wide, each species twining in one direction and American wisteria counterclockwise, roses tied to their supports, and vines pruned right after flowering when they bloom before mid-June.
- [11. Woody Ornamentals](https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/11-woody-ornamentals): NC State Extension, Extension Gardener Handbook: the quotation, clinging vines kept off houses, twining vines on lattice and chain-link and kept from small trees and shrubs, tendrils on wire and chain-link, woody vines as ground covers, rootlet vines on a tree trunk harmless unless they cover its foliage, and spring-flowering vines pruned after they bloom.
- [Parthenocissus quinquefolia](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/parthenocissus-quinquefolia/): NC State Extension, North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox, with its pages Campsis radicans, Bignonia capreolata, Celastrus scandens, Wisteria frutescens, Wisteria sinensis, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, Rosa setigera, Passiflora incarnata and Menispermum canadense: Virginia creeper's holdfasts at the tendril ends, hard to remove and ruinous to paint; trumpet creeper's aerial rootlets, its weight and its bloom on new growth; crossvine in shade and flowering better in sun; American bittersweet's twining stems that can strangle a live support, its male and female plants with one male to six to nine females, and pruning in early spring; American wisteria's counterclockwise twining, its first flowers by the second or third year, the reasons a vine fails to flower, and its clusters opening after the leaves; Chinese wisteria's flowers before the leaves fully emerge and its velvety pods; riverbank grape's tendrils and the small trees it kills with shade; muscadine's male and female plants; the climbing prairie rose climbing by its prickles on a fence or arbor and pruned in late winter and early spring; maypop climbing by tendrils and dying to the ground in cold winters; and moonseed twining through the vegetation, its fruit clusters taken for wild grapes, poisonous, and each fruit holding a single crescent-shaped seed.
- [Muscadine Grapes in the Home Garden](https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/muscadine-grapes-in-the-home-garden): NC State Extension: the quotation, a single wire 5 to 6 feet above the ground as the easiest trellis, side shoots cut back each dormant season to buds that bear the next season, and perfect-flowered cultivars such as 'Carlos' and 'Noble' that fruit alone.
- [Honeysuckle Species in Pennsylvania](https://extension.psu.edu/honeysuckle-species-in-pennsylvania): Penn State Extension (Susan Marquesen): Japanese honeysuckle's hollow stem pith against the solid pith of every native honeysuckle, and the native vining honeysuckles' twining stems that need a structure to climb.
- [Oriental Bittersweet](https://extension.psu.edu/oriental-bittersweet): Penn State Extension: oriental bittersweet's flowers and fruit at every leaf axil, against American bittersweet's at the stem ends only.
- [Vitis labrusca, fox grape](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Vitis.pdf): USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (Franklin T. Bonner): fox grape's dioecious flowers.
- [Pieris phyllyreifolia](https://www.fnps.org/plant/pieris-phyllyreifolia): Florida Native Plant Society: climbing fetterbush climbing pond cypress and white cedar, and trained against an arbor or post.

## Related

- Next step: [See the catalog](https://bluewhaletrees.com/shop/index.html.md)
- [Trumpet creeper, crossvine or trumpet honeysuckle: telling them apart](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/trumpet-creeper-crossvine-or-trumpet-honeysuckle/index.html.md)
- [Low native shrubs and groundcovers for sun, shade, sand and bog](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/low-native-shrubs-and-groundcovers/index.html.md)
- [Invasive vines and shrubs are what is killing your woods](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/invasive-vines-and-shrubs/index.html.md)
- [Poison ivy and the native plants that look like it](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/poison-ivy-and-its-native-look-alikes/index.html.md)