HONEYSUCKLE
For verandas and porches the Honeysuckles will probably afford better satisfaction because of their less rampant habit. Also because of the beauty and the fragrance of their flowers. Many varieties are all-summer bloomers. The best of these are Scarlet Trumpet and Halleana. The vines can be trained over trellises, or large-meshed wire netting, or tacked to posts, as suits the taste of the owner. In whatever manner you train them they lend grace and beauty to a porch without shutting off the outlook wholly, as their foliage is less plentiful than that of most vines. This vine is of rapid development, and so hardy that it requires very little attention in the way of protection in winter. The variety called Scarlet Trumpet has scarlet and orange flowers. Halleana has almost evergreen foliage and cream-white flowers of most delightful fragrance. Both can be trained up together with very pleasing effect. There are other good sorts, but I consider that these two combine all the best features of the entire list, therefore I would advise the amateur gardener to concentrate his attention on them instead of spreading it out over inferior kinds.
Every lover of flowers who sees the hybrid varieties of Clematis in bloom is sure to want to grow them. They are very beautiful, it is true, and few plants are more satisfactory when well grown. But—there's the rub—to grow them well.
The variety known as Jackmani, with dark purple-blue flowers, is most likely to succeed under amateur culture, but of late years it has been quite unsatisfactory. Plants of it grow well during the early part of the season, but all at once blight strikes them, and they wither in a day, as if something had attacked the root, and in a short time they are dead. This has discouraged the would-be growers of the large-flowered varieties—for all of them seem to be subject to the same disease. What this disease is no one seems able to say, and, so far, no remedy for it has been advanced.
But in Clematis paniculata, we have a variety that I consider superior in every respect to the large-flowered kinds, and to date no one has reported any trouble with it. It is of strong and healthy growth, and rampant in its habit, thus making it useful where the large-flowered kinds have proved defective, as none of them are of what may be called free growth. They grow to a height of seven or eight feet—sometimes ten,—but have few branches, and sparse foliage. Paniculata, on the contrary, makes a very vigorous growth—often twenty feet in a season—and its foliage, unlike that of the other varieties, is attractive enough in itself to make the plant well worth growing. It is a rich, glossy green, and so freely produced that it furnishes a dense shade. Late in the season, after most other plants are in "the sere and yellow leaf" it is literally covered with great panicles of starry white flowers which have a delightful fragrance. While this variety lacks the rich color of such varieties as Jackmani and others of the hybrid class, it is really far more beautiful. Indeed, I know of no flowering vine that can equal it in this respect. Its late-flowering habit adds greatly to its value. It is not only healthy, but hardy—a quality no one can afford to overlook when planting vines about the house. Like Clematis flammula, a summer-blooming relative of great value both for its beauty and because it is a native, it is likely to die pretty nearly to the ground in winter, but, because of rapid growth, this is not much of an objection. By the time the flowers of either variety are likely to come in for a fair share of appreciation, the vines will have grown to good size.
For the middle and southern sections of the northern states the Wistaria is a most desirable vine, but at the north it cannot be depended on to survive the winter in a condition that will enable it to give a satisfactory crop of flowers. Its roots will live, but most of its branches will be killed each season.
Ampelopsis Veitchii, more commonly known as Boston or Japan Ivy, is a charming vine to train over brick and stone walls in localities where it is hardy, because of its dense habit of growth. Its foliage is smaller than that of the native Ampelopsis, and it is far less rampant in growth, though a free grower. It will completely cover the walls of a building with its dark green foliage, every shoot clinging so closely that a person seeing the plant for the first time would get the idea that it had been shorn of all its branches except those adhering to the wall. All its branches attach themselves to the wall-surface, thus giving an even, uniform effect quite unlike that of other vines which throw out branches in all directions, regardless of wall or trellis. In autumn this variety takes on a rich coloring that must be seen to be fully appreciated.