All about the Vici grape

The garden liana, known as the Vici grape, is a beautiful deciduous climbing plant with high decorative effect, great vigor and good frost resistance. Maiden grapes are popular all over the world. It is grown in America and Mexico, Canada and Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand.

The attractiveness of the three-leafed vine lies in its beautiful leaves. Maiden grapes bloom with inconspicuous small flowers of pale whitish-yellow tones. Small fruits that ripen at the end of the season are inedible. The most optimal climate is temperate. Tri-pointed maiden grape is a powerful tree-like liana with fluffy foliage covering the surface on which the liana grows with a solid carpet. An adult liana is capable of reaching 10 to 30 meters in length, although in the first two years it grows only three meters.

Young shoots are painted in a reddish tint, when mature they take on a brown-green color. By autumn, green leaves acquire a strikingly beautiful color: from carmine red to lemon yellow or purple shades. The arrangement of petiolate palmate leaves is alternate.

Maiden grapes have many varieties, with the help of which you can turn any unsightly shed into a mysterious structure hidden by a green or multi-colored curtain. Its size is enough to decorate a building up to 8 floors (if it is, of course, a warm climate). With the help of girlish grapes, garden plots can be hidden from prying eyes, noise and dust, a large mass of vines absorbs excess moisture. The deciduous vine, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, gave birth to 19 species of decorative ivy, two of which are cultivated in Russia:

• virginian five-leaf;
• triangular (3-blade).

The crown of Vici grapes forms a dense cover through which it is impossible to see the main surface. After the first couple of years, the vine begins to give a steady increase of up to two meters annually.

The most popular varieties:

• Don Juan - has a beautiful leaf, in autumn it is painted in carmine-scarlet tones;

• Yellow Wall - the length of the whip is up to 14 meters, the foliage is painted in autumn in bright yellow tones;

• STAR SHOWERS - variegated form: in summer the foliage has a white-green color, in the fall - pink-red.

The plant is widely used in urban landscape gardening in Ukraine, the Far East, the Baltics, Krasnodar Territory, etc. In a mild climate and under ideal conditions, the liana sometimes reaches 40 meters in length. Many European castles are entwined with the Vichy grape decorative vine.

The unpretentiousness of the Maiden grapes allows even inexperienced gardeners to grow it. For planting, they choose those areas that require decorative cover, places for zoning the site, wall space, gazebos, terraces, etc. Vici loves sunny places, it is there that he will show real potential - incredible decorativeness and richness of vegetative mass.

For planting seedlings, holes are prepared 50x50 cm in size, placing a drainage layer at the bottom (this is mandatory). For this, a sand-pebble mixture is poured, it can be replaced with fine gravel.The excavated soil is mixed with organic matter (humus, manure, compost), about 1 liter of wood ash is added, and this is quite enough. The distance between seedlings is from 50–70 cm. The seedling is planted in the same way as any other plants. It is necessary to cover the root with earth, compact the soil, shed well, shade for a week from the scorching sun.

Vici is a moisture-loving plant, so abundant watering is required for it, especially in hot weather. This event should be carried out weekly for an adult creeper, while young plants need to be watered even more often, except for the rainy period, when there is already enough moisture. When watering, do not forget about surface irrigation. Tall vines are simply watered from a hose with a splitter - the grapes respond gratefully to such procedures.

The plant does not often need fertilizing, it is fertilized once a year. Organic fertilizers are applied after the vine is covered with foliage. It is not recommended to introduce synthetic compounds - girlish grapes react very badly to them.

Sanitary pruning is done annually, which means that it is necessary and possible to cut all damaged, diseased and dry shoots... Conduct and formative pruning, if the crown needs to be formed, they achieve a certain shape from it, limit growth in one direction or another. As a rule, such procedures are carried out in early spring or autumn, before the onset of cold weather.

An adult liana winters well in Siberia without shelter, however, up to two years, the plant is not yet too strong, and the temperature sometimes drops to minus 35 and below. Therefore, it is better not to risk it and organize a shelter for the winter. The liana must be lowered to the ground and covered with mulch or agrofibre. If the growth force is large enough and it is not possible to remove a 3-meter liana, then it must be cut off.

Maiden grapes are grown in plots of all sizes and types. Liana can be grown in a pot if there is no room for it, but I really want to have this miracle in the collection. If you use the capabilities of the vine for its intended purpose, then its use in landscape design is very wide:

• cosmetic disguise - unprepossessing buildings, ugly sections of the fence or other buildings are decorated with liana;

• Vici can plant empty space giving him the opportunity to grow like a shaggy ground cover, on which children will play with pleasure, and such a lawn will look great in the fall, at the same time displacing all the weeds;

• hedge - it is worth letting the vine along the trellis, and a green fence, impenetrable to prying eyes, is provided to the owner, moreover, over time, lignified shoots will become impassable for physical penetration;

• if you plant a plant along the walls of the house, then in a few years the building will look like beautiful european castles, entwined with ivy (in this case, you will have to monitor the formation of the vine, clean the window and ventilation spaces);

• Because the roots are close to the surface and Vici is doing great in large pots and pots, it can be grown in a city apartment on the balcony.

A few tips before boarding:

• if the walls of the house are plastered, and the owners have a desire to decorate them with maiden grapes, one must bear in mind - it can seriously damage the plaster layer and thermal insulation, so great is the force of the antennae clinging to the surface;
• great wall option for decorating with triangular grapes - wood, stone, concrete;

• for shingles and slate, the plant can also pose a threat, so its mass is large enough, especially if many roots are planted - it can just push them through.

Vici is ideally combined with other types of flowering climbing plants:

• climbing the Rose;
• clematis - mountain, prince, clematis;
• decorative honeysuckle (she needs support and Vici can play her role);
• chinese lemongrass, climbing view of Highlander, Aristolochia, Vineyard short-stemmed, etc.

There are a lot of climbing vines, but not all of them bloom beautifully, so whether it makes sense to plant ivy and maiden grapes together, it is up to the owner of the site to decide, because they will be distinguishable from each other only in autumn. However, you can think of a combination of several types of vines, for example - Vici, ivy, climbing rose, vineyard, etc.