Designing with vines - passive cooling with plants
Okay I wrote a big thing, based on a conversation started by @socalledunitedstates that was followed up on by some esteemed members of #plantblr such as my colleague @plantanarchy. It was a well-intentioned piece but encouraged the use of English Ivy. Apparently it was all deleted, which is too bad - these are all learning experiences y’all! Anyway, here is my response:
We’ve been battling English Ivy for 5 years on this property. It is choking out some cool native species here in Western NC. Please don’t plant it anywhere but indoors unless you’re in England. It’s a great indoor plant though! You want the right plant in the right place.
Hedera helix / English Ivy - A great indoor plant! Excellent for beginners and just busy people in general. Please keep it indoors though.
In the spirit of OP’s attempt to be helpful though, here’s some ideas:
Let me preface by saying that you have to be careful with vines. Even if they aren’t on invasive species list… sometimes they ought to be, and just haven’t quite made it there yet. As OP did mention, do your research before planting anything. These suggestions are based on my experience as growing them in the American Southeast. YMMV.
Actinidia arguta / Hardy kiwi vine - Delicious edible perennial. Can be eaten fresh, right off the vine, like a grape. USDA hardiness zones 3-8. This is definitely invasive in some places.
Vitis / grapes - Delicious edible perennial. Growing zone depends on the type of grape involved. Some require processing to be used, others are for eating fresh off the vine (aka “table grapes”).
Lonicera sempervirens / coral honeysucke - this is native to the US Southeast. Vigorous, gorgeous, wildlife (esp hummingbirds) will fucking love you if you plant it. Long bloom period. Once planted, you may never get rid of it. Z 4-9
Clematis - short bloom period, though there are some rebloomers out there. Stunning while in bloom, meh the rest of the time. There’s tons of different varieties. Hardiness zones vary.
Gelsemium sempervirens / Carolina Jessamin - Beautiful and fragrant. Like Clematis, short bloom period but a showstopper when it does its thing.Toxic as hell but pollinators love it. Foliage is evergreenish. Zones 7-10.
I’m growing all of these currently (except Gelsemium), and they are the most well behaved vines in our garden. Vines have a well-deserved reputation for getting unruly, though of course this depends upon where you are in the world. Vines can be great fun, but it’s good to grow native and/or non-aggressive ones.
Honorable mentions: Ipomoea alba / Moonflower and Lablab purpureus / Hyacinth Bean Vine. Both are well behaved annual vines in my biome and what we use on our home - to cool the Solarium. This is been an amazing year for the moonflowers.
(please ignore how neglected and ragged my plants look in the Deck Bed - it’s been crazy hot, crazy dry, and I’ve been insanely busy but I wanted to show how we’re actually using them to cool the house.) And yes they actually legitimately cool the house in summer, we’ve been able to tell via thermometers and energy bills in summer. It’s a THING.
Here’s a nice photo of a moonflower I found on the internet. They’re simply gorgeous, and excellent for moon gardens and witchery generally.
Nice, this is a great post!
I hope I didn’t come off as overly harsh on the original post with @socalledunitedstates I just… reallly…. really… hate english ivy.
In my climate for the potential purpose of cooling your house and aesthetics, I’d really prefer annual vines to perennial ones, because a lot of perennial vines look just plain ugly in winter. But just because it’s an annual doesn’t mean it can’t spread like hell. For example, morning glories lol you will never get rid of them if you plant a normal ole morning glory. They will eat your garden and spread easily from seed. I mean, I love morning glories but damn.
This year, my mom planted a bunch of annual vines in the garden that I posted about the other day, including:
Cardinal Climber (Ipomea sloteri)
Love-In-A-Puff (Cardiospermum)
Firecracker Vine (Ipomea lobata)
So those are some more potential climbing options.
Just for the record, I never explicitly said English ivy (I didn’t explicitly say not English ivy either, though, because some people do live in England lol), but I included a link to research what is/isn’t good to plant in your area. I understand people’s aversion to it though - I’d definitely be hesitant too if I saw someone suggesting kudzu as a ground cover, for instance Thank you for the more extensive post! I also mentioned in the original that, if you are able to safely plant climbers on a significant portion of your walls, it can help with insulation as well - and, provided your walls weren’t already damaged (don’t plant climbers on damaged walls, they can reach into cracks and widen them), might even help prevent damage



























