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Virginia Creeper - advice needed

I have received an email from Chris who is having trouble with his Virginia Creeper. "Hello, I purchased two plants 5 years ago and planted them some distance apart up against the wall of the house. I considered this to be an ideal setting, the wall is brick and the aspect is SW. Predictably, a period of time elapsed before the runners became really active, and at this point my expectation was that they would begin to take advantage of the wall. The runners made every effort to circumnavigate the 'house', but attempts to elevate its self beyond ground level were infrequent. Ultimately I provided some help in an effort to coax this miscreant plant to behave in a more orthodox manner, but with only limited success. It will venture up window frames and other angular features (vertical), but that is all I can expect. The plants resemble a monstrous spaghetti, writhing across the boarders; not an encouraging spectacle. Have you any advice?"
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Phil

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  • Hi,

    A couple of questions to ask - what is the condition of the soil where the virginia creepers are planted and also has the brickwork been treated with anything? I suspect that the brickwork may have been treated with some sort of chemical - that would account for the creepers only clinging to parts of the wall which may have missed the treatment such as the windowframes.

    If this is indeed the case, I don't think you'll find anything that will grow up the wall of its own accord. A solution might be to put in a climbing frame with vine eyes drilled into the brickwork which will keep a climber away from the brickwork - something like Gripple can be very useful and once you have your plant merrily growing away, it's quite unobtrusive. For a Southwest aspect I would go for a couple of Wisteria. If you get the framework right - about 12" between the horizontal lines - you will be able to train the wisterias quite nicely to cover the wall. I won't be quite as quick as the virginia creeper but after some years you'll have a beautiful wisteria all over the house.

    Hope this helps,

    Andy
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