10 Flowering Vines to Add Beauty (and Privacy) to Your Backyard
Everyone can use a bit of shade and privacy in the backyard. Luckily, flowering vines are an excellent way to add color and texture while creating a living privacy screen. Most climbing flowering vines grow fast and require little maintenance. Round out your garden's design with a vertical element by planting and caring for one of these 10 gorgeous climbing flowers.
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Wisteria
Reliably cold-hardy to zone 4, First Editions Summer Cascade Wisteria is a fast grower and can quickly cover a pergola, fence, or garden feature with lovely lilac-purple flowers in June. If you're looking for that early-season color followed by lush summer foliage, attractive seedpods, and stunning fall color, Summer Cascade is an easy-to-grow, purple flowering vine.
Zones: 4 to 8
Clematis
Clematis is a favorite perennial vine because it scrambles up trellises and climbs over arbors and fences year after year, weaving a rich tapestry of color and texture. The Sparky series is an early-blooming clematis that embraces the season with fabulous, spiky flowers, and it's durable and easy to grow. This spring bloomer doesn't even need pruning—plant it on a trellis, railing, or other structure and enjoy the show. The vine is available in three colors: Sparky Pink, Sparky Purple, and Sparky Blue.
Zones: 5 to 8
Black-Eyed Susan Vine
If you are interested in a fast-growing annual vine that will give you color all summer long, Lemon A-Peel Black-Eyed Susan Vine will not disappoint. This vigorous grower will happily climb up whatever support you give it and deliver fun, bright yellow blooms until the first frost. The vine is hardy in zones 10 to 11 but can be grown annually in all zones.
Zones: 10 to 11
Bittersweet
First Editions Autumn Revolution Bittersweet is a cultivated native, self-fruiting North American species. While many bittersweet varieties require a pollinating partner plant, Autumn Revolution has "perfect" flowers, meaning it can create fruit all on its own. Although this flowering vine has beautiful blooms, most people are interested in its vibrant orange berries, which are showstoppers in the fall and winter months. The foliage is gorgeous and disease-resistant, and the fall color is lovely.
Zones: 2 to 8.
Holboellia Vine
Heavenly Ascent Holboellia features glossy foliage and large, white, highly fragrant flowers in spring. It is a fantastic evergreen vine for adding privacy, beauty, and scent to the backyard. It reaches up to 20 feet tall with support.
Zones: 8 to 10
Climbing Hydrangea
Hydrangeas are beloved for their lovely, large blooms and lush foliage. Although most people are familiar with the shrub variety, Hydrangea anomala petiolaris (climbing hydrangea) will easily cling to surfaces by aerial rootlets, creating a romantically lush garden wall fit for any cottagecore garden. Climbing hydrangeas feature a slow-growing, shrubby habit until established, then become quite vigorous, producing long, fast-growing stems.
Zones: 4 to 9.
Trumpet Vine
This climbing deciduous vine is a hummingbird magnet. Balboa Sunset Trumpet Vine features clusters of large, tubular, deep reddish-orange flowers that create a dramatic show all season long. The vine grows vigorously and blooms profusely with near neglect once it's established. Use as a ground cover or for screening a lattice or fence.
Zones: 4 to 11.
Honeysuckle
Major Wheeler Coral Honeysuckle is a vigorous, fast-growing vine that's perfect for covering a fence post, arbor, or trellis in a season. This variety thrives in high humidity and is mildew-free. Its blazing red and gold blooms appear all summer long and last well into autumn. The stems are often red to purple, turning greenish brown with age, offering visual interest in the fall and winter.
Zones: 4 to 8.
Carolina Jessamine
Carolina Jessamine is renowned for its spectacular display of fragrant, bright yellow flowers and emerald green foliage. It climbs beautifully on a trellis, arbor, or over fences and walls without smothering surrounding trees and shrubs. The vine can be evergreen to semi-evergreen (depending upon the hardiness zone), creating visual interest during the winter.
Zones: 7 to 9.
Fiveleaf Akebia
Also known as chocolate vine due to its dangling stalks of chocolate-scented, deep purple flowers, Fiveleaf Akebia is a vigorously spreading and climbing vine that features attractive, blue-green foliage. It's semi-evergreen in zones 5 to 9 and deciduous in less temperate regions. If another fiveleaf akebia vine is planted nearby, this plant can produce edible seedpods that taste similar to tapioca pudding.
Zones: 5 to 9
