Think Twice Before Letting Vines Cover Your Home

Vines climbing up the wall of a house can look absolutely charming; something about them suggests that there is a blazing fire in this house and an abundant supply of tea and biscuits. It’s also a way to blend in with the natural world around you, even if your home is located in a suburban area. And climbing vines can provide some benefits to your home: for example, they can cool it by shading it from the sun and increase your sense of privacy .

But depending on the type of vine that has attached itself like a vampire to your home, they can also be incredibly destructive . There are many varieties of climbing vines: if you inherited one when you bought your home, or if it’s creeping up your outside walls uninvited, it’s worth identifying exactly what you’re dealing with (hire a professional if necessary). And it’s probably worth removing the vine, because unless you’re willing to put a lot of energy into caring for that vine, it could very well cause a lot of damage.

Service

The vines grow without your help, thank you very much. In fact, they grow too well without your help: a major aspect of caring for climbing vines in your home will be the never-ending battle of pruning and training them to prevent them from silently weaving in and under everything and eventually enveloping your entire home. . You’ll need to trim dead stems to keep them from rotting and cluttering the ground, and to keep the stems from tangling and tangling with each other, but these actions will also stimulate growth, so the vine will take it as a personal challenge and grow even faster . setting off a doom cycle of sorts.

And not only will you have to constantly tend to these vines to keep them under control, you’ll have to do it on the stairs because – in case you haven’t noticed – the vines grow .

Damage

The type of vine using your home as a stairway to heaven matters because different types can damage different types of exteriors. English ivy, Boston ivy and Virginia Creeper are popular climbing vines, but they can cause serious damage to vinyl, stucco or wood siding. They can also damage the brick, although it may take a very long time for the damage to become apparent. Some types of vines will literally rip gutters off your walls if left to their own devices.

The damage that climbing vines can cause is very wide:

• Moisture. Grapevines can retain moisture, especially if they are grown in the shade and do not receive regular sunlight. Ivy and other vines can grow up and under wood strips or siding panels, bringing with them moisture that eventually causes rot and mold.
• Crack. Some types of vines attach themselves to walls using invasive tendrils. As vines grow, they can become heavy and the force exerted on the exterior of your home can cause cracks to appear, which in turn allow moisture to penetrate underneath the façade.
• Hidden problems. Even if the vine itself is not causing any trouble, it can hide problems from you until they become extreme. Minor damage or signs of squirrel intrusion may be hidden by the thick cover of green vines.
• Insects and rodents. Grapevines are also an attractive breeding ground for all sorts of insects, which can turn your outdoor spaces into a mosquito city. They also act as superhighways for ants to enter your second floor bathtub and for rodents to find weak spots where they can burrow into your home from the outside.

A final consideration with grapevines is that they are often an invasive species that can destroy other plants in your yard or garden, covering the ground and blocking the sun from any competition. They can also be literally invasive, entering your home through tiny cracks in window casings, seals, or other weak spots.

If you absolutely must have (or keep) a climbing vine in your home, your best bet is to hire a professional gardener who can identify and take care of it, as well as carry out an inspection to make sure it won’t damage your wall. Better yet, attach a screen or trellis to the outside of your home and let the vines grow on it rather than on the wall—once the vine is thick enough, it will trick the eye and leave your walls intact.