A Guide to Adorning Your Landscapes with Flowering Vines

Flowering vines are a great addition to any garden. With color and fragrance, they add vertical interest that can be contrasted with the shrubs and trees in your garden, as well as all the hardscaping.

They can be used to enhance various areas of the garden like fences, trellises, arbors, pergolas, or even as ground covers.

In this guide, we offer you our best flowering vine recommendations.

Recommended Flowering Vines

Every flowering vine on this list has something unique to offer. It all depends on what works best for your landscape and your taste.

You can also browse through those and more climbing flowering vines on our Garden Marketplace on Shrubhub, where you can easily search by your hardiness zones and budget-friendly stunning options.

Japanese Honeysuckle

Also known as Lonicera japonica, this fast-growing flowering vine features fragrant white or yellow flowers. It's such a vigorous grower that it has been classified as invasive in certain countries.

Like most flowering vines, the evergreen vine can be used to cover unattractive fences or create a privacy screen. The shape of the green foliage around the showy flowers distinguishes this honeysuckle from others.

It can be grown in hardiness zones 4-9.

Cup and Saucer Vine

Also known as Cobaea scandens, this vine produces unique cup-shaped flowers in shades of purple, pink, or white. It is, however, most well known for its deep purple flower color.

It can be trained to grow on arbors or trellises to create a stunning vertical accent with its climbing flowers.

Silver Lace Vine

Saucer vine, also known by its scientific name Polygonum aubertii, is known for its lacy, wedding-like white flowers. This fast-growing vine is also a vigorous grower and can rapidly cover large areas such as walls or fences.

It grows most vigorously in the full sun and prefers warmer regions.

blooming from early spring to early summer and sometimes across the summer. Regularly prune it to enjoy it longer and encourage more blooming across the growing season.

With its stunning white flowers against the green foliage, it creates an ethereal otherworldly feel as it covers archways or pergolas.

Morning Glories

Also known by the botanical name Ipomoea tricolor, this stunning fast-growing vine is hardy to zones 2-11, but is considered a perennial vine only in 9-11 zones. Likewise, they prefer the full sun but can be grown in partial shade.

These vibrant flowers come in various colors and can be grown on trellises or fences to create a colorful backdrop in the garden.

Grapevines

Those perennial vines are rightfully one of the most beloved climbing vines. Not only do they add a high aesthetic quality to your landscape, but also a delicious harvest.

They're best grown in the full sun in warmer climates. Grapevines can technically grow up to 115 feet tall, though, of course, you can control the height and spread through pruning.

They can be grown along fences or trellises to create a beautiful and productive garden feature.

Virginia Creeper

This climbing vine, also known as Parthenocissus quinquefolia, is one of the most stunning perennial vines that will change your entire garden with its fiery red color in the fall. It can be grown in USDA hardiness zones 3-9 and can be grown in either the full sun or shade, able to reach 60 feet tall either way.

It can be used to add a striking pop of color to fences or walls. It also attracts birds with its berries and provides shade in summer.

Jackman's Clematis

This flowering vine is known for its classic, large purple flowers. It's also a perennial vine. It blooms in early summer and continues all summer long. It prefers cooler climates to neutral, hardy to USDA hardiness zones 4-8. It likes full sun exposure.

Those vines grow perfectly over mailboxes or lampposts.

Wisteria

This flowering vine is known for its stunning cascades of fragrant, purple, blue, or white flowers. The Wisteria can be trained to grow along pergolas or arbors.

They require sturdy support and regular pruning to maintain their shape. It'll keep on blooming through the growing season longer than other varieties.

Honeysuckle

This classic honeysuckle flowering vine variety forms fully tubular flowers, unlike its Japanese counterpart, whose petals form two flaring lips. Their golden yellow, sweetly scented flowers attract all attention until flowers fade with the beginning or middle of fall.

Honeysuckle makes an excellent climbing vine. It can be grown on trellises, fences, or pergolas and attracts hummingbirds and butterflies.

Passionflower

Passionflowers have intricate, exotic-looking blooms with unique structures. They are available in a variety of colors and can be grown on trellises or fences. You can plant them in either the full sun or partial shade.

Passionflower vines also attract pollinators like bees and butterflies.

Climbing Roses

This list wouldn't be complete without the classic climbing rose. With its sweet fragrance and a wide array of colors for gardeners to choose from, it's a continuously beloved climbing vine for a reason.

It can be trained to climb walls, arbors, or fences, transforming them into a romantic focal point in the garden.

Trumpet Vine

Featuring trumpet-shaped blooms in shades of orange or red, trumpet vines are vigorous climbers that attract hummingbirds and bring autumn into your garden all year long.

The Trumpet Vine reaches a height between 20 and 40 feet tall. You can expect it to bloom in late spring or summer, but after a while when it's fully established, it can bloom in early spring. They can be grown on trellises or fences to add a vibrant splash of color to the garden.

Black Eyed Susan Vine

With their subtly fragrant flowers, these grower, annual vines grow with remarkable tubular flowers and classic triangular leaves.

They're perfect for hanging baskets but can be used across multiple, varied structures.

Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea is a tropical vine that offers vibrant displays of papery, colorful bracts.

They are excellent for growing on trellises, walls, or arbors, providing a burst of color to the garden

Climbing Hydrangea

Climbing hydrangeas are another very popular flowering, climbing vine.

Versatile with beautiful creamy white blooms, the climbing hydrangea can be used in many ways across the landscape, attracting attention wherever it is. The climbing hydrangea isn't difficult to care for, it could be grown in full sun or partial shade, as long as the climate is temperate.

Those climbing vines we have for you are all stunning with unique qualities. Flowering and climbing vines can add a lot to any landscape. Now we will go into all the different ways you can make the best use of them in your landscape.

For more advice, recommendations, and helpful tips to make your landscape better, check our weekly blogs where we cover everything related to landscapes and garden care.

Uses of Flowering Vines

There are various ways to creatively incorporate flowering vines into your landscape design.

Here are some ideas we have for you on how to use them:

Vertical Accents

Harness the climbing nature of flowering vines to create vertical accents in your landscape.

Train them to grow on trellises, arbors, or pergolas to add height and visual interest to your garden.

Privacy Screens

Use fast-growing flowering vines like Japanese Honeysuckle, Silver Lace Vine, or Clematis to create natural privacy screens. You will get both privacy and beautiful blooms.

Let them grow along fences or walls to provide shade and seclusion.

Archways and Entryways

Transform archways, doorways, or entry gates by training flowering vines to climb them. This adds a touch of charm and fairy tale-ish beauty to these areas, especially with naturally classic and charming vines.

Living Walls

Utilize flowering vines to create living walls or green screens. Plant them on wire mesh or trellis panels attached to walls to create a stunning vertical garden effect.

This is especially perfect if you have a flawed wall in your garden you don't like the look of.

Cover Unsightly Structures

Hide unattractive structures such as utility boxes, old tree stumps, or garden sheds by allowing flowering vines to cover them. Even your mailbox, if you don't want to go through the hassle of replacing it with a new one, can easily be transformed with a small cascading flowering vine.

The vines can also soften hard lines and blend into the surrounding landscape as well.

Ground Covers

Certain trailing or spreading flowering vines can be used as ground covers as they spread widely.

This is particularly useful for areas with poor soil or slopes where it is difficult to grow other plants.

Attract Wildlife

Many flowering vines, such as trumpet vine and passionflower, produce nectar-rich flowers that attract pollinators like hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees.

By planting these vines, you can create a wildlife-friendly habitat in your garden.

Container Gardening

Some compact or trailing flowering vines, like climbing roses or bougainvillea, can be grown in containers. This is perfect for small gardens as well.

Use containers on patios, balconies, or in small spaces to add color and beauty.

Hanging Baskets

Hanging baskets are already a charming look. With a climbing vine, they can add a lot to the overall look of your landscape.

Remember to consider the specific requirements of each flowering vine, such as sunlight, water, and support structures, when deciding how to use them in your landscape so that you get the best out of them. With this guide, you now have beautiful references to start with and ways to use them in your garden.

Just remember to plan for adequate support structures to accommodate their growth habits and create a visually appealing garden design. And if you don't feel like your garden design as it is now will be very accommodating or will feel cramped, you only need to re-design and make better use of your space. At Shrubhub, we're currently offering 70% off on our design services, including our 2D and 3D design services, which will give you a perfect idea of how exactly your design will look when implemented.

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