How to Attach Vines to Cement Walls

Covering the cement, stucco or block walls of a garden divider or the plain side of a house or garage with colorful vines is a wonderful way to cheer up a landscape design. The only problem is how do you attach vines to solid walls?

Instructions

1. There are a number of ways you can deal with attaching vines to cement walls. First you can avoid the problem entirely and grow the vines up a support that rests against the wall instead of using the wall itself. This can be done with any kind of trellis. Trellises can be made of wood, metal, vinyl, bamboo or other materials. Some are ornamental and some are simply practical. The least expensive way to create a support for vines against a wall is to use a sheet of large woven-wire hardware cloth - the big flat metallic forms used for a anchor in pouring concrete on flat surfaces - that forms a big criss-crossed wire form easy for plants to twine up.

2. A second way is to set hardware into the wall itself. This will be much stronger and create a closer surface of plants along the wall. It will also be less vulnerable to winds. You can use hooks, nails, eyes or any other small hardware. Using a masonry drill bit, drill holes into the cement of the wall (or brick), slot in a small anchor sleeve and pound in your hardware. If you use nails, masonry nails are the strongest choice. Then you can wire a pattern of diagonals, horizontals or verticals with weather-resistant string or garden wire through the ends of the hardware so your fabricated support frame stands at least 1/2 inch away from the wall allowing plants to pull themselves up.

3. You can also grow vines like ivy, Cat's Claw, Virginia Creeper or another self-supporting plant that clings by its own rootlets. These plants are easy and ideal on block walls, but be careful of potential damage from these tenacious rootlets, especially on the walls of houses and other structures.

4. These are three ways you can attach a support to grow vines up a cement, block or brick wall.

Resources

• Landscape design and gardening information
• Dress up the Landscape
• Design with vines