Vines With White Flowers

Virginia Creeper

• The whitish-green flowers of the Virginia creeper vine (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) are not terribly showy, but by September, the berries they generate are ripe and ready for consumption by wild birds. Virginia creeper can grow to great length under the right conditions, maturing sometimes to 50 feet long. Use it for ground cover or locate it where it can climb walls and trellises in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 through 9. "Monham" is a cultivar with multiple colors in its leaves, including green, cream, pink and white. The engelmannii subspecies of Virginia creeper has bronze leaves in autumn.

Boston Ivy

• Fruit and foliage are the highlights of Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata), an Asian vine common in the United States, especially in the Northeast region. Boston ivy grows in shade or sun; the "Fenway" cultivar possesses yellow-green foliage when grown in sun and lime-green leaves if planted in shade. The flowers are white-green and of little ornamental consequence, but the fall color is often spectacular, with shades of red and purple present. The berries wind up on bird menus once the foliage drops off the vine, allowing them to find the fruits. "Ginza Lights" grows to similar lengths -- between 30 and 50 feet -- but has pink-white foliage in spring that goes to green and finally red in fall.

Clematis

• Evergreen clematis (Clematis armandii) grows in full sun in USDA zones 7 through 9, producing aromatic white spring flowers. Reaching lengths of 10 feet, evergreen clematis twists its way up and around a support structure. "Summer Snow" is one of the longer white-flowering clematis vine cultivars, growing to 20 feet. "Summer Snow" blooms heavily in June and July, with its flowers as wide as 2 inches. Use it in zones 5 through 9. Pink and mauve mix with the mostly white color in the flowers of "Snow Queen." This clematis grows 10 feet long, with the flowers often up to 7 inches across. "Snow Queen" is cold-hardy to zone 4.

Two North American Natives

• Woodbine (Clematis virginiana) handles the shade quite well, growing to 20 feet and flowering from August into October. Its pure white flowers are sweet-smelling. The white-green flowers of Carolina moonseed (Cocculus carolinus) are too small to be an ornamental factor, but they yield pea-sized, brilliant red fruits that hang on the vine well into fall. Hardy to USDA zone 5, this vine will die back to ground level in a severe winter, but not in the Deep South.