Photo: Sarah Anne Drake, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Climbing Fetterbush

Pieris phillyreifolia

Also called vine-wicky, climbing heather, climbing pieris, Andromeda phillyreifolia.

The only climbing heath in the country, an evergreen that runs up inside cypress bark and hangs white bells from winter into spring.

RareEvergreenShowy flowers

Type: Shrub
Mature height: 1–3 ft
USDA zones: 8–9
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Part
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Sandy barrens, swamps and wet flats
Native range: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina See what is native in your state

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Climbing fetterbush is an evergreen heath of cypress ponds and cedar swamps from South Carolina to the Florida panhandle and Mississippi. It is the only heath in the United States that climbs. Flat underground stems run up inside the fibrous bark of pond cypress or Atlantic white cedar and send out leafy branches as high as 30 feet. Where no such tree stands near, it grows as a low shrub that forms clones. It is common in the Florida panhandle but rare elsewhere, and NatureServe ranks it critically imperiled in South Carolina and Mississippi. Grow it as a low evergreen at the damp edge of a pond, or train it up a post or arbor.

Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator treats it as slow, like our mountain fetterbush, about a foot a year. Grown free, it is a shrub 1 to 3 feet tall that spreads by underground stems. Beside a pond cypress or white cedar it climbs inside the bark to 30 feet, putting out branches as it goes.

White, narrow bells about a third of an inch long hang in short sprays from December into May. The leathery, blunt leaves carry a few teeth near the tip. Early spring insects visit the flowers.

It grows wild on the coastal plain from southeastern South Carolina through Georgia and northern Florida, west across the Florida panhandle and southern Alabama to the corner of Mississippi. Its home is cypress ponds, Atlantic white cedar and hardwood swamps, and wet hollows in pine flatwoods.

How to grow Climbing Fetterbush

Climbing fetterbush wants part sun on moist, sandy, acid soil. Keep it out of standing water and out of hot, dry ground, and give it shelter from hard frost. It does poorly with disturbance and with fire. Set plants 3 feet apart and keep them 2 feet from a wall. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship potted. Plant them in spring or fall, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and mulch with pine needles or leaves, clear of the stems. Seed of its relative mountain fetterbush needs no chilling, so sow it on the surface of a damp, fine mix at room temperature, in daylight. The seedlings of the genus grow very slowly at first.

Keep the soil moist through the first two summers, since it does not stand drought. Grown free it stays a low, spreading shrub. Pruning keeps it compact, or tie the long shoots to a post or arbor.

Each flower carries both male and female parts. Its relative Japanese pieris sets seed with its own pollen, so one plant should bear seed alone. Its relatives mountain fetterbush and Japanese pieris are highly poisonous if eaten, so treat it the same.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

Sources (7)

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