Plant Pick: Creeping Wire Vine….Say What?
Meuhlenbeckia Axillaris aka Creeping Wire Vine
I have seen this ground cover called Creeping Wire Vine or Wandering Wire Vine, so you can expect to see it labeled whatever cute name comes to mind, I guess. Is that fair, by the way? I will probably need to order some since I don’t have one at the moment, but I will get this plant so that I can put it in a large trough this year.
It is listed as hardy for my zone 6, but creeping wire vine is deciduous/herbaceous and will lose its leaves in the winter. Its structure does getting slightly woody but in my zone will lose its leaves, so maybe it is decidu-baceous ?
Deciduous ( loses its leaves) means usually shrubs and trees, or a plant keeping a year-round woody structure. Think of a forsythia bush. Herbaceous ( loses its whole structure) plants have no permanent structure and disappear completely below ground over winter. Think of a peony.
The plant that I would like to have is the smaller size so that I can plant it in a large hypertufa trough along with some other plants. That way I can see for myself how far it will spread and increase throughout the year. It should make a good ground cover for a trough full of bulbs, right? The leaf color ranges from dark green to bronze during the year.
According to the information I can find, this vine is a woody prostrate vine which some say can become invasive if planted in the ground. I am not planning on planting it in the ground, but inside a large garden planter which I will be making again this year. I want a big new T Rex Trough like this one
Statistics on this plant:
- Size: 1-2 inches high
- Interest: foliage, has tiny but insignificant flowers
- Spread: 18 inches
- Exposure: part sun to sun
- Zone 6-10 deciduous in colder zones
- Soil: any with needs excellent drainage! Drought tolerant
- Rock gardens and topiaries, nice cascading from pots
You can prune this easily and it grows back in and fills the area well, so it is perfect for a topiary.
The pruned pieces can be rooted for new plants so I am sure I will be trying many new starts if it should die next winter. It can freeze in colder zones and the leaves turn black, but then is supposed to rebound in the spring.
You can purchase one here if you can’t find it in your area. Creeping Wire Plant – Muehlenbeckia – Inside/Out -Stepable- 4″ Pots
Of course, I will need to make a special hypertufa planter for this one. Beside my giant hypertufa garden planter, I think it would also be really nice in a basket-weave textured bowl and perhaps insert a handle made from a grapevine so that there is something to allow the vine to twine upon. We will see how this turns out.
Do you have this plant already? Any advice for me?
Photo credit: By Daderot (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Hi, I am Kim and thank you so much for visiting my magazine! I am a gardener and a hypertufa maker. If you came here to learn about hypertufa, I have a lot of information. But I also write about flower gardening and using succulents which are great drought-tolerant plants.
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