Vines change the dimensions of the landscape.

I have in mind a Georgia garden’s low stonewall covered with Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquifolia), transformed into a stage for the dance of wind and bees through layers of summer foliage and flowers. Birds danced on this stage in fall, feeding on purple-black berries against a fiery red backdrop of autumn leaves. In winter, the wall reappeared as a still life, a canvas covered with the sinuous curves and angles of naked stems traced in shadow, holding fast against the cold stone.

I recall a Virginia creeper climbing the straight branchless bole of an old South Carolina pine, the bright red leaves shining in October sunlight against the pine’s dark bark.

Here in Maine, I have seen woodbine (the New England name) used to grace the fa?ade of campus halls and the entrance bowers of private gardens. I have seen Virginia creeper used in as many ways as a vine can be used, even as ground cover where there was nothing to climb. Some gardeners call it aggressive, a tribute of sorts to its rapid growth rate. I consider woodbine exuberant. It is a matter of temperament.

Equally exuberant is the trumpet creeper vine (Campsis radicans), commonly named for its deep orange to red trumpet-shaped flowers. We called it cow-itch vine in its native Georgia, presumably because it made the cows itch when they brushed against pasture fence posts that supported its growth.

Stiffer in habit than woodbine, its stout, leafy stems would surround the post with vine and keep climbing upward even after they ran out of post, twining around each other, reaching for the sky as if the entire fence post would any minute fly away.

In New England, where it is not native, trumpet creeper vine is less exuberant, yet does a quick job of covering the garden fence or pergola. Although rated winter hardy to USDA Zone 4, I believe it performs best in Maine’s southern and coastal gardens.

A vine’s exuberance may not be immediately apparent. There is an old saying, “The first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps, the third year it leaps,” referring to the slow growth of many vines in the first year or two after planting.

Of course, there are differences among vine species in this regard. I believe the gardener who coined this verse was talking about the climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala petiolaris). Native to China and Japan, this popular garden vine is slow to get started but rewards the patient gardener with a unique three-dimensional character created by stiff lateral branches that extend outward from the plane of support.

In summer the entire vine bears large “lacecap” inflorescences, clusters of small, white, fertile flowers, each surrounded by a ring of larger, white, sterile bracts. Over many years, climbing hydrangea will develop a network of stout cinnamon-colored branches with exfoliating bark, providing another incentive to keep the garden paths open in winter.

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Avoid using the ‘kudzu of the North’

Not all vines transform the landscape for the better. A vine to avoid is Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus), a non-native invasive species that has earned the nickname “kudzu of the North,” after the infamous invasive vine that smothers South landscapes.

Now ubiquitous along Maine roadsides and in Maine forests, Oriental bittersweet has proven its capacity to escape cultivation and invade natural areas. It pulls down native tree saplings with its strong stems as it climbs into the canopy, soon smothering the crowns of larger trees with its rapid growth.

It spreads by seed and humans are major vectors, harvesting fruit-laden stems, either from the garden or the wild, for decorative wreaths. Sooner or later, the wreaths are discarded and the seed dispersed.

Most nurseries and garden centers have ceased growing and selling this noxious weed, but the practice of harvesting from the wild continues.

You can help by spreading the word about the environmental danger of this practice.