Chocolate vine provides privacy in narrow space
Creating privacy is a common landscape desire. Trees or large shrubs are appropriate choices if there is room for them to spread their branches, but if the need for privacy is in a narrow space, this ordinary request becomes a challenge.
Akebia quintata is a vine that literally rises to the occasion. Commonly called chocolate vine and five-leaf akebia, it quickly twines its way 20 feet tall turning a large trellis into a wall of lush, privacy-producing foliage.
The bright green compound leaves - each with five leaflets - are attractive from the time they unfurl in the spring until they are released from branches in early winter. Small chocolate-purple flowers, gently scented of vanilla, dangle from thin stems in spring. But don't plant chocolate vine for the floral show. In my experience, the flowers are few and far between and often concealed by the foliage.
If another chocolate vine is planted nearby, pods resembling tiny elongated eggplants appear after the flowers. They are edible but reportedly not very tasty. If left on the vine, they open to expose tiny black seeds in fall.
Native to China, Japan and Korea, chocolate vine prefers lots of sun but tolerates fairly deep shade. It favors a site with average, well-drained soil and seldom requires fertilizer. It is rarely bothered by pests or diseases of any kind.
Besides providing privacy in a narrow space, chocolate vine can deliver quick cover on a fence to hide an unattractive view, blanket an ugly garden structure, and soften the hard edges of a large arbor. It can also be utilized as a ground cover in a large area or to secure soil on steep slopes.
Its dense vining stems have created a favorite staging area for small birds on a pergola over one of our decks. Wrens, sparrows, finches and juncos flit back and forth from the vine to a spruce and then to the feeders.
A cautionary note: Akebia quintata has naturalized in forested areas in the eastern United States. Although it has not been designated a noxious weed, it can become invasive and care should be taken to keep it under control. It can be pruned after flowering to prevent the formation of seed pods. The entire vine can be cut down to the ground in late winter, or the ground-touching branches that have rooted can be dug out and pruned off.
If gardeners are willing to give just a bit of attention to control, the chocolate vine is a lovely, fast-growing, pest- and disease-free solution to many landscape challenges. And it has chocolate in its common name … and who doesn't love chocolate?
• Diana Stoll is a horticulturist and the garden center manager at The Planter's Palette, 28W571 Roosevelt Road, Winfield. She blogs at gardenwithdiana.com.