Vines can hide an ugly fence or add beauty to trellis or doorways. When grown over an arbor or pergola, they can create shade. But when gardeners think of vines, the first thing that comes to mind may be imported ones like Japanese and Chinese wisteria, English Ivy, or the dreaded oriental bittersweet, which can all be difficult to get rid of (and have notoriously escaped our gardens and aggressively displaced native plants in the wild). There are many native vines, though, that can play a useful part in your garden scheme.
Christina Koether, a backyard flower farmer, florist, and garden designer behind Nomadica in Weston, Connecticut, notes that tastes and awareness are gradually shifting: In October, for example, it will be illegal to sell both Japanese wisteria (Wisteria floribunda) and Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis) in Connecticut. As a result, she says, “I think we will see native vines like Aristolochia macrophylla and Lonicera sempervirens become more popular again.”
Here are 11 native vines that garden professionals are using in their designs:
Dutchman’s Pipe (or Pipevine)
Looking for a native vine to cover an ugly deer fence on the woodland edge of her property, Koether decided to try planting a pipevine (Aristolochia macrophylla), whose heart-shaped leaves were a favorite in Victorian gardens until favor shifted toward the imported Chinese and Japanese wisterias for their showier flowers. “Pipevine—it’s one of my favorite native vines,” says Koether, who admits that technically, it’s native to areas slightly further south than Connecticut, where she gardens. “But I rolled the dice when I bought them, knowing the butterfly that relies on it would likely start coming further north as temperatures increase each year.” Sure enough, this year, Koether watched pipevine swallowtail butterflies lay eggs on the vine, which hatched into caterpillars. In addition to being the host plant for the pipevine swallowtails, who rely on this plant to survive, Koether appreciates the playful pipe-shaped flowers in the springtime.
California Pipevine
Out on the west coast, Andrea Hurd, the founder of Mariposa Gardening & Design Cooperative in Oakland, California, points to the California native pipevine (Aristolochia californica), which has larger, distinctive purple-striped, pipe-shaped flowers. “We have a garden where it has gotten well-established,” she says. According to the California Native Plant Society, this plant is common in moist woods and along streams in northern and central California. Like its cousin Aristolochia macrophylla, it is the host plant for the pipevine swallowtail, and there are other regional Aristolochia to explore, depending on where you garden.
Coral Honeysuckle
Not to be confused with Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), which is considered invasive in most states, coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) is native to the southeast and grows as far north as Maine and inland to the midwest—and is a favorite of several garden pros. Gena Wirth, a landscape architect and partner at SCAPE’s New York office, recently moved into a home in Brooklyn with a large fence that backs onto a subway corridor, on which she is experimenting with a number of native vines, including coral honeysuckle. “Lonicera sempervirens is such an easy-to-grow, adaptable plant that thrives in full and part sun environments,” says Wirth. “I love planting it in arches and garden windows, as its flowers reach for the light.” Koether notes that she also likes to use cuttings of both the greens and the flowers in her floristry work.
Trumpet Vine
If you want to attract hummingbirds, look to trumpet vine (Campis radicans) and its orange, trumpet-shade flowers. It’s native to eastern North America, as far north as Ohio and South Dakota. Fast- and high-growing, trumpet vine has a reputation for being aggressive (great if you want it to screen a fence), but the experts from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, in their guide Great Natives for Tough Places, say that it can be controlled with pruning if you want to contain its vigor.
Groundnut
“I love edible native plants, so I’m very excited to try potato vine in my home garden,” says Wirth; Apios americana produces tubers with a potato-like flavor, which were used extensively in Indigenous American culture. The vine prefers moist soil conditions (it is found in woodland thickets and riparian forest edges across the central and eastern U.S.) and can be “a strong, even aggressive grower in the right conditions,” says Wirth, who also uses it in her public work for SCAPE. “A member of the pea family, it can fix nitrogen and it can hold up on tough public urban sites, planted below taller trees and shrubs that support its growth,” she adds. As the larval host of the silver-spotted skipper, this plant checks lots of boxes, but she notes, “The best part is its distinctive flowers: Drippy, gorgeous clusters of reddish brown flowers that truly pop along shady edges. There’s nothing else like this sultry, secretive native.”
Crossvine
In Austin, Texas, Amy Hovis, the principal of Eden Garden Design and owner of Barton Springs Nursery in Austin, Texas, encourages gardeners to try crossvine (Bignonia capreolata), which has a wide native range from Maryland to Missouri, south to Florida and east Texas. “A true superstar in the landscape, crossvine is fast-growing and it provides good coverage, beauty, resilience, and ecological benefits all year long,” says Hovis. As an evergreen, it keeps its lush, green foliage through Texas’s mild winters. Hovis says, “The real magic happens in the spring when it bursts into bloom with trumpet-shaped, orange-red flowers that attract pollinators like bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies.” However, what Hovis says she appreciates most about crossvine is its resilience in the face of Austin’s unpredictable climate. “It has endured our intense summer heat, occasional droughts, and even sudden freezes.” Further north in New York City, Wirth is testing crossvine’s hardiness and other qualities (aggressiveness, etc.) even though it’s outside of the plant’s usual range, but as Wirth notes, “New York City is hot and we need climate adaptive plants.”
Chaparral Clematis
Out in California, landscape designer Camille Cimino, the principal and owner of The Nature of Things in Los Angeles, says that gardeners have have a narrower range of native vine choices because vines typically need a lot of moisture or rainfall, but Cimino has found a few natives that are versatile and drought-tolerant, including the native Clematis lasiantha (chaparral clematis). “It has beautiful white flowers and it’s really adaptable to dry soils,” says Cimino. Growing to 12 to 18 feet and deciduous, it provides shade in summer and lets in sun in winter.
California or Pink Honeysuckle
Another west coast native that grows from southwest British Columbia to southwest California is the California honeysuckle (Lonicera hispidula), which flowers profusely in spring with pink tubular flowers. “This plant is a hummingbird magnet, and its berries also attract songbirds, so it’s great for wildlife,” says Cimino. “It can be grown on a trellis or arbor, as a groundcover. It’s also planted on slopes for erosion control, and sometimes you see it planted on the sides of California freeways.” A small plant, Lonicera hispidula only grows 8 to 10 feet, so it’s very easy to manage.
California Wild Grape
Cimino also often uses Vitis californica, or California wild grape, in her garden designs for its beautiful foliage and benefits to wildlife. “It’s a prolific, fast grower, growing 30 to 40 feet per stem,” says Cimino. “Birds are attracted to the grapes, which are edible for humans, but not super tasty.” Because the wild grape is deciduous, Cimino notes it shades areas in summer and allows sun to come in the winter.
Virginia Creeper
In the Rockies, Derek Brandt, the founder of HabitatGuild in Fort Collins, Colorado, says the garden industry is lacking in native vines, but one that is widely available is Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia). “Excellent for vertical surfaces in small spaces, this fast-growing vine is great for covering a trellis for added privacy, or to soften hard visual edges,” says Brandt. It thrives between full sun and shade, requires little water, and is one of the first plants to turn brilliant red in early fall. “While we tend to use vines in the landscape for their climbing properties, consider Virginia creeper as a good choice in ground cover, especially in bare areas without other perennials, to minimize the risk of smaller plants being smothered,” suggests Brandt.
American Wisteria
If your heart is still set on wisteria’s romantic purple flowers, there’s an American wisteria native (Wisteria frutescens) from Massachusetts and Iowa, south to Florida and west to Texas that does well in moist, rich soil with at least partial sun. Wirth says, “I thought about planting the American wisteria, as it fits with the Victorian vibe of my neighborhood.” But as a ecologically-minded garden professional, she chose not to because she worried people wouldn’t see the difference between it and its aggressive Asian counterparts Japanese wisteria (Wisteria floribunda) and Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis).
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