# Fox Grape (Vitis labrusca)

> The eastern wild grape behind Concord, a climbing vine whose large, musky, slip-skin grapes ripen in early fall for jelly, juice and wildlife.

Also called northern fox grape. Category: Nut & Fruit Trees. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/fox-grape/

![Fox grape (Vitis labrusca) cluster of dark purple wild grapes among the leaves of a climbing vine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/fox-grape-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Lucy Keith-Diagne, CC BY 4.0, cropped · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AVitis_labrusca_154618896.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Shrub
- Mature height: 20 to 40 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 5 to 8
- Grows wild in: Floodplain forests, stream banks, old fields and edges
- Native range: 26 states and [the District of Columbia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=DC), north to [Maine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=ME) and south and west to [Louisiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=LA) ([Alabama](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=AL), [Connecticut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=CT), [Delaware](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=DE), [Georgia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=GA), [Illinois](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IL), [Indiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=IN), [Kentucky](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=KY), [Louisiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=LA), [Maine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=ME), [Maryland](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MD), [Massachusetts](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MA), [Michigan](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MI), [Mississippi](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MS), [New Hampshire](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NH), [New Jersey](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NJ), [New York](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NY), [North Carolina](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NC), [Ohio](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=OH), [Pennsylvania](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=PA), [Rhode Island](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=RI), [South Carolina](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=SC), [Tennessee](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=TN), [Vermont](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=VT), [Virginia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=VA), [West Virginia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=WV), [Wisconsin](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=WI) and [the District of Columbia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=DC)). Also recorded, not native, in [Utah](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=UT)
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Average
- Growth rate: Fast
- Flowers: May to June
- Fruit: Berries, August to October
- First crop: About 3 years after planting
- Mature spread: 20 ft
- Traits: Edible, Wildlife value
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

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

## Availability

Saplings ship [bare-root](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/planting-bare-root-trees-on-arrival/index.html.md) or [in a pot](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/a-sapling-in-a-pot/index.html.md), [usually 12 to 18 inches tall](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/small-sapling-or-big-transplant/index.html.md), in the dormant season, and their [height and age](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/reading-a-nursery-listing/index.html.md) are stated with the price, once available. Live plants ship February to May and October to November. Not priced yet: leave an email on the web page for one email when it is priced, with a code for 10% off the plants in that order, not shipping or tax, or write to captain@bluewhaletrees.com.

## Notes

Fox grape is a wild grape of the eastern United States and the native parent of Concord and other American grapes grown for juice and jelly. Unlike its close relatives, it carries a tendril or a flower cluster at nearly every joint of its stems, and its leaves are thickly felted beneath with rusty or grayish hairs. Its large grapes have skins that slip off the pulp and a sweet, musky taste. Run it along a sturdy fence or over an arbor in full sun, where the grapes sweeten best.

## Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator uses the fast rate of our other wild grapes, nearly three feet a year. It climbs 20 to 40 feet into trees by its tendrils or sprawls over shrubs. The bark of older stems is rough and shreds in strips.

Fragrant, yellow-green flowers open in May and June. Clusters of up to about 20 grapes follow, each up to three quarters of an inch across and dark purple to black. They ripen from August into October and drop one by one, and many birds and mammals eat them.

It grows wild from Maine and southern Ontario west to Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois, and south to Georgia and Mississippi. It lives in upland and lowland woods, on bottomlands that flood now and then, at forest edges and in thickets and along roadsides. Escaped hybrids of the Concord kind have gone wild in Utah and the Pacific Northwest. Kentucky lists it as threatened.

## How to grow Fox Grape

Fox grape fruits best in full sun, and the more sun it gets, the sweeter the grapes. It does best in deep, loamy soil that stays evenly moist, and it tolerates most soils if they drain well. Site it out of frost pockets and winter wind, since late frosts can hurt the new shoots. It climbs by tendrils, so give it a sturdy arbor, fence or trellis to grip. It can climb to the tops of tall trees or sprawl over shrubs, so keep it off ornamental trees and shrubs. Set the support 8 feet from a wall, and set vines 15 feet apart along it. It climbs whatever it reaches, so keep it more than 50 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stem. Tie the first shoots to the support until the tendrils take hold. Strip the ripe grapes, and wash the seed clean of the pulp. For a spring sowing, hold the seed damp in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 months first. Seedlings rarely come true, so Concord and other named varieties are grown from cuttings.

Water weekly through the first summer if rain is short. Prune it every year and train it along its support, since a vine needs both to bear well. Deer eat young shoots, leaves and fruit, so cage young vines where deer are many.

Vines are male or female, and only females bear grapes, so plant three or more seedlings for a male and a female. Black rot, anthracnose, downy and powdery mildew and bunch rot can strike, especially in humid summers. Grape berry moths and Japanese beetles are its worst insects, and birds take a share of the crop. Moonseed, a poisonous look-alike, climbs without tendrils, has leaves with no teeth, and holds one crescent-shaped seed in each berry. Other vines with similar fruit are poisonous too, so be sure of the plant before eating its grapes.

## Sources

- [Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder: Vitis labrusca](https://plantfinder.mobot.org/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?taxonid=301151)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Vitis labrusca](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=VILA8)
- [Flora of North America, Volume 12: Vitis labrusca (Moore and Wen)](http://floranorthamerica.org/Vitis_labrusca)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (Agriculture Handbook 727, 2008): Vitis labrusca, fox grape (Bonner)](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Vitis.pdf)
- [Native Plant Trust, Go Botany: Vitis labrusca](https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/vitis/labrusca/)
- [Trees and Shrubs Online: Vitis labrusca](https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/vitis/vitis-labrusca/)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Vitis labrusca](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.131865/Vitis_labrusca)
- [Office of Kentucky Nature Preserves: Kentucky Rare Plant List, September 30, 2022](https://eec.ky.gov/Nature-Preserves/biodiversity/Documents/2022%20Kentucky%20Rare%20Plant%20List%202.pdf)
- [USDA NRCS PLANTS Database: Vitis labrusca](https://plants.usda.gov/plant-profile/VILA8)
- [Missouri Department of Conservation Field Guide: Common moonseed](https://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/common-moonseed)
- [NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Menispermum canadense](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/menispermum-canadense/)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [The habitat around a tree is part of the tree](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/habitat-around-a-tree/index.html.md)
- [What a young tree looks like: first-year seedlings of oak, walnut, hickory, chestnut, maple and redbud, and the weed trees to pull](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/what-a-young-tree-looks-like/index.html.md)
- [Invasive vines and shrubs are what is killing your woods](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/invasive-vines-and-shrubs/index.html.md)

## Related

- Other grapes (Vitis) we grow: [Muscadine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/muscadine/index.html.md), [Riverbank Grape](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/riverbank-grape/index.html.md), [Summer Grape](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/summer-grape/index.html.md)
- Plants that share its sun and soil: [Trumpet Creeper](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/trumpet-creeper/index.html.md), [Riverbank Grape](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/riverbank-grape/index.html.md), [Roughleaf Dogwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/roughleaf-dogwood/index.html.md) and [Missouri River Willow](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/missouri-river-willow/index.html.md)
- Trees to plant it under: [Slippery Elm](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/slippery-elm/index.html.md), [American Elm](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-elm/index.html.md) and [Common Hackberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/common-hackberry/index.html.md)
- Same size, similar character: [Muscadine](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/muscadine/index.html.md), [Summer Grape](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/summer-grape/index.html.md), [Hillside Blueberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/hillside-blueberry/index.html.md) and [Roundleaf Serviceberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/roundleaf-serviceberry/index.html.md)
- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Fox Grape, add ?species=fox-grape with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address; for example, the verdict for zone 5, part sun and average soil as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md?species=fox-grape&zone=5&sun=part&moisture=average
- [Companion species for Fox Grape](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=fox-grape): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Tree growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate for Fox Grape as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md?species=fox-grape (add height=, years= and site= poor, average or good)
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Fox Grape is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan for it as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md?species=fox-grape (add state= and zone= for your own frost dates, method=fridge for the refrigerator route)
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Fox Grape needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the verdict for 3 of them as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md?plants=fox-grape:3
- [Planting-window tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md): when to plant Fox Grape where you live, as a fall and a spring window from the local frost dates; the windows as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md?species=fox-grape&state=MO&zone=6 with your own state and zone in place of those
- [Planting-distance tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md): how far Fox Grape goes from a house, a septic field, a walk, wires, a property line and the next tree; the distances as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md?species=fox-grape&near=house,septic,pavement,wires,boundary,tree
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Fox Grape flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species; its own row and the gaps of a planting with it as Markdown at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md?plants=fox-grape