I read once that vines are the final touch for the well-thought out garden. They soften the look, and give the feeling that the garden has been in place for a while.
I agree with that, and so I placed some trellises on the back of my house, and trained both loropetalum shrubs at the bottom and grew akebia vines at the top. Just recently my insurance company has made me remove the vines, because they could potentially worm their way under my siding, even though they are on the trellis. I hated that, because the vines on the house were so pretty – but, now they are gone and I can see the good sense in it. My thought is that I will replace the vine with a climbing rose, since it won’t be invasive.
Yesterday I took this photo of one of my roses. Even though the weather has been miserably hot and dry and the bush has lost most of its leaves, this newly opened rose is still exquisite.
