Don’t overlook vines for color in your garden. Here are the best for North Texas

Vines are underused plants in North Texas landscaping. They serve many of the same purposes as shrubs and trees, but they take up so little valuable space in today’s shrinking gardens. They provide vertical greenery to break up the starkness of fences and walls. They deaden street noises as they provide privacy. We use them for overhead shading.

Most of all, though, we look to our vines for color. Some types are in bloom with the first warm days of spring — as tulips and daffodils are at their peaks. They’re followed by many that flower as spring marches on. Some even bloom in the heat of mid-summer, and a couple wait until early fall. It’s possible to have vines in bloom for five or six months.

Let’s identify the best vines for North Texas, both woody types and annuals. I’ll point out which, and I’ll also look back at which woody types were injured by the cold of February 2021.

Flowering vines to consider …

These are what I would consider to be the best flowering vines for North Central Texas. For the record, I’m not including types like English ivy since it’s not a showy flowering vine, nor fig ivy for that same reason and because it’s very marginally hardy to our cold here. I’ll list them in general sequence of their flowering.

Carolina jessamine. This one has so many attributes. It’s compact with dark, evergreen leaves and tubular bright yellow blooms in early spring. The bell-shaped blooms are highly fragrant and popular with bees. It’s native to East Texas, but it’s adapted to all of our area. It did suffer a bit in the cold in 2021.

Wisteria. This is a large, strong-growing vine to 40 feet tall and wide. Its clusters of fragrant lavender or white blooms are icons of springtime. It blooms best in full sun. Plant it in deep, highly organic soil to avoid iron deficiency yellowing.

Confederate star jasmine. This must have a protected location. It freezes in winters that aren’t even as cold as 2021, but there are those among us that so love its fragrance that we grow it in large pots and move it into protection each winter. If you have a protected atrium, go for it. It’s the big sister to groundcover Asian jasmine, but unlike its relative, this one bears ultimately fragrant white, pinwheel-like blooms in the spring. I’ve had mine for 25 years.

Crossvine. These looks somewhat like trumpetvines, but they bloom in the spring and they grow completely differently — both by twining and by clinging. Flowers are orange, salmon or rusty red. Plant it in morning sun with shade in the afternoon.

Honeysuckles. I have to mention them. Coral honeysuckle is a native vine. It’s lovely, but powdery mildew can make it look weak. Purpleleaf Japanese honeysuckle is lovely, but it’s a better tall groundcover than vine. And the most dependable one of them all is the “naturalized” Hall’s honeysuckle known for its white blooms that turn yellow their second days. Its problem is that it’s horrifically invasive and should not be planted. Birds devour the fruit and it ends up germinating all over the neighborhood. Woe be you if you even plant one.

Clematis hybrids. You’ll come across them in area nurseries each spring, and if you’re from the north originally you’ll get your hopes up when you see them. They will grow here, but it won’t be easy. They need morning sun and shade in the afternoon. Give them highly organic planting soil and a fence on which they can grow. Prune them gently (if you prune them at all), and be prepared for them to be half as vigorous as they were in colder climates. Our summers are their enemy, but with patience you can prevail.

Evergreen clematis. This is a spectacular evergreen vine for the shade. It produces creamy-white blooms in the spring, but it must be planted in a protected location. It can’t handle our normal North Texas winters.

Madame Galen trumpetcreeper. This is our finest choice for the best mid-summer color from a flowering vine. It’s far more refined than wild trumpetvines. (Doesn’t send up dozens of those obnoxious sprouts that the native one does.) Madame Galen produces clusters of tubular orange blooms all summer. It’s a great vine for fences and over arbors, although the spent flowers will need to be removed regularly to prevent staining.

Sweet autumn clematis. This is a lovely “native” vine. (Naturalized — not really native, but escaped cultivation and has become established, although not a problem.) It grows to 10 to 20 feet tall in a season. It flowers in late summer and early fall each year, but it should be cut back to within a couple of feet of the ground each winter to keep the plants compact. They’re more attractive and bloom more reliably that way.

I’ll conclude with a brief mention of the several fine annual vines you might consider. They include black-eyed Susan vine (clock vine, Thunbergia), cypress vine, cardinal climber, morning glories, moon vine, hyacinth bean and tropicals like mandevilla and bougainvilleas. I’ll cover some of those in more detail another time.

This story was originally published March 10, 2023 at 6:00 AM.