Virginia Creeper

Size, growth and what to expect

Virginia creeper grows fast, nearly three feet a year in our growth estimator. It climbs 30 to 50 feet on a wall or a tree, and wild vines reach 60 to 75 feet into the treetops. One plant spreads 5 to 10 feet wide. Its leaves open purplish, turn dull green and change to crimson and purple early in fall, among the first vines to color.

Greenish white flowers hide under the leaves from May into August, and bees visit them. Blue-black berries about a quarter inch across ripen from August into October on red stalks and hang on into February. Birds eat them through the winter, among them chickadees, woodpeckers, thrushes and bobwhite. Its leaves feed the caterpillars of several sphinx moths.

It grows wild from Nova Scotia and Quebec south to Florida and west to Minnesota, South Dakota and Texas. Beyond the United States it ranges through Mexico to Guatemala. It lives in open and shaded woods and climbs along fencerows, forest edges, stream banks and rocky bluffs.

How to grow Virginia Creeper

Virginia creeper grows in full sun, part shade or full shade, and its fall color is brightest in sun. Any soil that drains suits it, from sand to clay and from acid to limy. Once rooted it rides out drought, heat, compacted soil and salt, and it stands occasional flooding. Its sticky pads hold fast to brick and stone, and once fixed they are very hard to remove and can ruin paint. Keep it off wood or shingle siding, where the tendrils work in between the boards and the dense leaves keep the wood wet after rain. Keep it off gutters, shutters and wiring too, and cover a masonry wall only where the vine is to stay for good. Plant it 5 feet from a wall it should not climb, and set plants 3 feet apart along a fence or trellis. It burns readily, so where wildfire is a risk keep it out of the planting zone next to a house. It will climb utility poles, 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 stems. Lead the first shoots onto the wall, fence or trunk the vine is to climb. Pick the berries once they turn blue-black, and clean the seed from the pulp. Sow it outdoors in fall, about 3/8 inch deep. For a spring sowing, hold the cleaned seed damp in the refrigerator for 60 days first. Softwood cuttings taken in summer root easily too.

Water weekly through the first summer, and in a long drought soak the soil 6 inches deep each week. Once settled it grows fast, so trim it every year to keep it in bounds. Pull shoots off gutters, shutters and wiring before their pads take hold. Deer browse the leaves and stems in spring and summer, but the vine is moderately resistant to them.

Each flower carries both male and female parts, so there are no male and female plants to pair. Mildew, leaf spots, canker and wilt turn up now and then. Japanese beetles, scale insects, leafhoppers and caterpillars can leave the leaves ragged. Left to climb, it can shade out and slowly kill a shrub or tree it covers. Birds eat the berries, but they are highly poisonous to people and can be fatal if eaten.