I’ve been growing grapes for a few years now, and I like the idea of using them for shade. About 7 years ago I had some large trees that were on the south side of my house that were cut down. After they were cut down my air conditioning bill went way up. I don’t have the space to put in large trees because they rub on my house, but I thought maybe I could grow a large Vine up the side of my house to provide shade.
I’m curious, what is the tallest that anyone has ever gotten a grapevine to grow? Top of my house is about 30 ft (~9 m for our non American friends), do you think I could get them to grow a trellis that tall?
One thing to also think about is, similar to ivy, is that it will try and anchor itself onto your house and can damage siding and motar in the long long term. Also the weight.
On side note, I’ve seen wild grapes in my neighborhood grow probably 50 ft. They taste absolutely awful tho lol (like biting into a sour peppercorn)
Yes, the grapes at the top may be a major bird attractant. Building the trellis will also be a major task. So far I have two 8 ft trellises I have vines going up. I’ll just accept that the shade is the major product they are giving me I guess.
The goal would be to train them on a trellis so there is a bit of a gap. The current vines don’t seem to be able to grab onto my siding or brick facade, but they’ve only been at it for two years.
When I was a kid we had a bird planted Concord grape that grew 30 feet up a tree, my brother would climb the tree and toss down the clusters of grapes to me.
I’ve seen them about 20 feet/6 meters high, European red grapes or Concord, I don’t remember now, but wild grapes will definitely make it if they like the conditions, but it will be slow.
Can you make a self watering bed for the vines half way up so that you can get them to grow to the top faster?
If you have snow that slides off of your roof the trellis should be strong and above the normal depth of the snow.
The other, I don’t have that kind of experience.
As a kid, I harvested Scuppernongs from the top of pine trees up to 50 feet. My dad planted the vines and they decided trees were more appropriate than the grape trellis he built. Bunch grapes are not as vigorous as muscadines but should have no problem going up 30 feet. Question, how will you harvest the grapes?
Great timing on this thread. I also lost some shade trees recently and have been thinking about building a pergola over the patio and growing perennial vines up to and across the roof of the pergola to shade the patio and one wall of the house. Seems like grapes might be a better choice than hardy kiwi for my zone 5 western Montana climate.
Any thoughts on which vines are most vigorous/tall growing in a northern climate? Hops are neat but I don’t like that they die back all the way each year. Not particularly interested in grapes themselves although I wouldn’t say no to more fruit, and I have a winemaker friend who might take my extra if they were the right variety for that. Theres a restaurant in town that has Virginia creeper along an outdoor wall and it looks quite nice.
There is the issue of fruit dropping onto patio&furniture, not sure how worried about that I am yet.
If you don’t need fruit, you can try finding a male vine. V. riparia should be fully hardy for you, and the rootstock cultivar Gloire de Montpellier is male and should be available ungrafted from nurseries. Another option is V. amurensis, which is hardy down to -40 and has great fall color.
For fruit production, letting grapes grow to 30 feet will mean that your fruit will come in many small clusters scattered throughout the canopy rather than a few larger bunches, and much of the vine will be too shaded to produce fruit.
The problem with poplars is they tend to die and leave behind a large corpse that will fall on your house. I can see rows and rows of poplars from my house and about 50-70% of them are dead. It’s no bueno when we get our 80mph gusts and they’re next to your house. I also only have 15ft to grow in, so poplars are still too big.
For eating grapes, I would definitely say to go for the muscadines or scuppernongs!
And yeah! They grow like crazy and deal with the heat better! I’d definitely go for them!
I have grapes growing on the back of my shed and the unfortunate thing I have observed is if the tendrils do not latch onto something they start to reach outward, and the further they reach outward the more sun they get and the more vigorous it grows. Meanwhile I have hops, honeyvine, virginia creeper, trumpet vine, various passifloras, etc, that do a much better job growing dense and close to the various objects.
Yeah, I’ve seen many trellises as high as 40-50 ft tall shading houses like what you want to do. It’s not uncommon here.
I once tried some grapes from one of them and they were delicious so don’t give up on the idea of getting quality fruit at the same time.
I’ve seen it done with multiple varieties but I’m not sure which ones. They were probably pretty vigorous ones to support that amount of foliage and decent grapes on top.
