A Free Show of Fabulous Autumn Colours (Virginia Creeper)

Member Name: janharper

Product:	Virginia Creeper
Date:	06/10/09 (50 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful plant, lovely colours of leaf

Disadvantages: loses leaves in winter

I bought a Virginia Creeper about three years ago. It just looked like a stick with roots and I must admit that when I opened the packaging (it was via mail order) I was not happy. I really thought I had paid for a dead stick.

Anyway, I planted it and just left it, not expecting it to do anything. This was in august. Within two weeks it had started to grow and when the winter arrived it was about four feet tall. I had forgotten about it when it sprouted again in the following spring. The first year it covered one end of my outhouse and from then onwards if has gone mad.

The tendrils on this plant allow it to hold on quite tightly to any surface but I prefer to give it something to cling to. I bought some green garden wire and made a kind of criss-cross pattern on the wall by stringing the wire between a few nails.

The leaves change colour during the summer and the vine produces some small white flowers which you would never notice unless you went in search of them. I have had to trim it back a few times as it seems to like travelling along the guttering and I was sure it was intent on going down the drainpipe. (Do plants have intentions, I wonder?)

I have recently strung some wire across the bottom of my garden to form a kind of archway and it looks absolutely beautiful. The leaves have turned all shades of brown, orange, yellow and rich red and strands of the vine hang down to form a curtain. I know it won't last long because the leaves have started to fall and I'll soon be back to brown sticks, but it is all worth it just for this.

This is a truly beautiful climbing plant but it needs to be kept under control.

Summary: This is an attractive plant but loses leaves in winter.