PlantFiles: Monkshood Vine
Ampelopsis aconitifolia

I grow this one up and over my pergola and love it! I appreciate the finely cut foilage and the colored berries come fall. It reseeds occasionally and provides dense shade cover quickly.

In SE Nebraska, spaced at 15", forms dense wall 12' high in three years. Excellent for hiding ugly propane tanks and decrepit buildings. Birds and squirrels refuse to eat the berries, and horses refuse to eat the leaves, so it may not be wildlife friendly. But dense plantings attract hordes of insects and hordes of wasps that prey on the insects. Attracts swarms of a strangely marked fly that acts like a bee, but is just a fly. I manage vine to climb, not creep, and it works out very nicely.

This is a handsome green vine with finely cut leaves. I get an occasional self-sown seedling. The vine is easy to propogate by cuttings. Tiny insignificant white flowers but the orange berries in the fall are attractive. I have heard that birds like it but I have never observed anything eating them.

Foliage is finely cut and makes a great covering for walls, trellises, arbors and/or fences.