Heavenly Honeysuckle and Other Vivacious Vines
The Klamath-Siskiyou region doesn’t have many native vines, but the ones that do grow here include species that are heavenly scented, colorful, vivacious, and they provide a lot of habitat for a wide variety pollinators, including butterflies, bees, moths, hummingbirds, wasps, and flies. Some species of birds and mammals will eat the berries and fruit in late summer to early fall.
Native vines are not only important for pollinators and wildlife, the name honeysuckle comes from the fact that the nectar of some species is very sweet, and the nectar can be sucked from the flowers by humans who enjoy it, as much as pollinators do. Native, wild grapes are important to the wine industry, many of the native vine species have some medicinal uses, and all of them can be grown as landscaping plants or incorporated into habitat restoration projects.
Some native vines like cool, moist shade, while others are happy to grow on a sunbaked rocky ridgeline. If you’ve got a trellis or a fence, or even just a shrub or tree that you’d like to add some habitat complexity to, native vines are a good addition.
Pink honeysuckle (Lonicera hispidula)
Pink honeysuckle is very attractive when grown ornamentally on a trellis or fence in the garden settling. It can climb, scramble or sprawl. It will vine up in trees or sprawl along the forest or woodland floor as a groundcover. When trained to climb, the showy, large, pink honeysuckle flowers stand out and are easier for the many pollinators that love honeysuckles to forage or nectar on. Bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, flies and moths use pink honeysuckle flowers, and in the fall, when the flowers turn to bright red berries, the birds move in to munch on the berries. An important wildlife species, pink honeysuckle deserves more recognition as an adaptable and easy-to-grow native vine that is drought tolerant and deer resistant. It blooms May-June, depending on elevation, and can be grown in full sun to part-shade.
Lonicera hispidula-Pink honeysuckle
Orange honeysuckle (Lonicera ciliosa)
Orange honeysuckle is a colorful deciduous vine that is highly attractive to hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, moths, and other pollinators. The orange, trumpet-shaped flowers are very showy in the spring, and turn into orange-red berries in the fall. With a fence, arbor, shrub or tree as support, orange honeysuckle will grow as a vine, but without something to climb up it will grow as a groundcover or as shrub form. It is a larval host plant for numerous butterfly and moth species. Orange honeysuckle prefers to grow in sun to part shade, with moderately moist soil. In hot, sunny locations at valley bottom, it may be best to grow it in full shade.
Lonicera ciliosa-Orange honeysuckle
Chaparral honeysuckle (Lonicera interrupta)
Don’t let this lovely yellow honeysuckle fool you, this is one tough plant! Chaparral honeysuckle grows in extremely dry and exposed locations throughout its range in southern Oregon, California and southern Arizona. It prefers to grow on rocky ridgelines and dry slopes. As the common name implies, chaparral honeysuckle has a strong association with chaparral plant communities, often using shrubs as support as they vine their way up toward the sun where they flower in early summer. In late summer to early fall the flowers turn to bright red berries. The attractive flowers are loved by hummingbirds, native bees, and butterflies. Chaparral honeysuckle grows from a woody base and can be a stand-alone shrub, but with something to climb up on, it will happily become a vine. Chaparral honeysuckle is very drought resistant.
Western clematis (Clematis ligusticifolia)
Clematis ligusticifolia-Western clematis
Western clematis generally occurs in streamside thickets in riparian areas, along roadside ditches and fencelines, and in moist locations in woodland and coniferous forests at mid to low elevations. Often overlooked in the wild setting, western clematis makes a striking ornamental vine when grown in gardens. The prolific 1″ white flowers bloom in mid to late summer and are attractive to bees, hummingbirds and butterflies. The flowers then turn into showy, fluffy seed heads in the fall. This climbing, spreading vine can clamber 20′ or more up a tree, but will also be found as a sprawling groundcover where there are no trees or shrubs for it to grow on. Western clematis is deciduous in the winter.
California wild grape (Vitis californica)
Vitis californica-California wild grape
California wild grape has significant cultural and ecological value throughout its range in California and southern Oregon. This deciduous native grape can grow as a shrubby groundcover, or if it finds something to climb, it can become a 10-40′ vine, reaching high into the canopy of trees. It is most often found growing along rivers or smaller streams in riparian areas or near seeps, swales or springs. It inhabits riparian forest or woodland, but can also be found along streams in foothill woodland, chaparral or grassland communities as well, in the valley bottom, or in river canyons. Although California wild grape thrives in moist conditions it can tolerate summer drought conditions once established.
California wild grape grows vigorously and is easy to grow. It can be grown like any other grape cultivar, trained on a trellis, fence, or arbor, or allowed to grow up into an open grown tree. If untrained, it will grow as a groundcover. California wild grape’s tenacity also means that it can become aggressive in the garden setting and may require a lot of pruning to keep it under control. If it has a lot of space to grow, it will be happy.
Caliornia wild grape produces somewhat tart, but perfectly edible purple grapes that can be made into jams and jellies — or wine! The grapes are a traditional food for Native American tribes throughout its range, often dried into raisins for long-term storage. California wild grape is very important for the international wine industry. Due to its resistance to leaf and root attacking grape phylloxera aphids, nearly all commercial wine grapes grown anywhere in the world are grafted onto rootstocks of California wild grape.
The grapes are also an important food source for a wide variety animals, birds and insects, and is a staple food for species such as coyote, skunk, wood ducks, quail, mountain bluebirds, and more. Because of its importance as a food source for wildlife, and because it provides valuable cover, California wild grape is an important species for riparian restoration projects.
Although inconspicuous and often hidden beneath leaves, California wild grape has small green or yellow flowers that bloom in May to June and are pollinated by small native wasps and bees such as sweat bees. California wild grape is also a larval host plant for some species of native moths. The foliage puts on a showy display of orange and yellow leaves in the fall.
