New member & question about climbing vines

I've been lurking a while now, and have learned alot of new and much needed info. We just purchased our first home a month ago, and Im fully enjoying restoring the lawns and planting color around our home.

For my question.. I would love to have a thick climbing vine of some sort along the side of the house. Something similiar to the Boston Ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) or with a smaller leaf. There is a home close to me, with a very small creeping bright green, almost mossy looking vine growing inside the entire front porch entryway, and it is just gorgeous, but Im afriad I dont know what it is.

We do live in a hot zone(9) so something heat tolerant would be helpful. I do however have one side of the house that gets many hours of cooler sunshine, and shade.

Can anyone throw me some ideas? Thanks in advance!

Hi Tarryah, cant help from your discription, can you get a picture to send into the thread so others might be able to come in with advice for you if I cant help you, there are several vines that match your info, dont want to give the wrong name. another thing to try is get talking to your new neighbour, a good way to learn about gardening and plants, gardeners are normally friendly folk who love nothing more than admiration of their plants, sorry cant help you at this time, so picture will help. good luck and best wishes for your new home, hope you have very many happy times there. WeeNel.

If it happens to be creeping fig (ficus pumila) be afraid, be very afraid! I had it here and the trunks were 8" in diameter and the vine was rampant! Yeeks! It starts out looking very sweet and becomes very ugly.

Thank you for the responses!

I did visit the neighbor and ask, she informed me it was Fig Ivy (Ficus Pumila). Has anyone had experience with this? It sure looks nice covering the walls.

To the above poster: I see we named the same thing... however she had no trunks with hers. It grew up from the ground, with very small root stems. She said she'd had it about 6 years, and it covered the wall about 8ft high, and 6ft wide. Is there a similiar type that grows as a tree?

Thanks in advance.

This message was edited Aug 10, 2007 11:40 PM

NO, ficus pumila is a very aggressive vine here. There are no trees that I know of. Just be very careful, as you may regret it later. As I said it starts out very tiny and sweet and eventually gets really ugly. Just my humble opinion!

The picture sure looks like creeping fig to me and I'm with gardenerme--be very afraid! It may take it a while but creeping fig WILL become very aggressive over time. If you really want some creeping fig, do what I did--put some in a hanging pot where you have absolute control over it (and you could root some pieces off your neighbors if she is willing to share). What I've chosen to use that works very well for me is jasmine. It won't cling so I have to weave it through my trellis and, where necessary, I use green twist ties to hold it in place. It covers the trellis fairly quickly and looks very pretty (it's evergreen down here in the south too). It covers itself with little white flowers in late spring/early summer and they smell wonderful. I only fertilize mine once each spring so it doesn't grow so fast that I have to do a lot of pruning to keep it from overshooting my trellis. I have one that gets morning sun and one that gets evening sun--both are thriving real well. Haven't tried it in full sun so can't tell you how that would work out.

As pretty as it looks... I dont think I want to end up regretting it later. Thanks for the info and advice!

I may well go with a smaller jasmine, Ive grown confederate and pink jasmine (in pots) So I'm fimiliar with those.

Ty again!