growing habit

Height: 1500cm Spread: 200cm Any soil type, sun or partial shade. Lifted from BBC gardening page.

thanks a lot, wagger, very useful

Hi both - I've seen this plant growing and I'd say it gets quite a lot bigger than that, Wagger. I'm sure I've seen it pretty much cover the wall of a house. It is a very architectural plant with nice big leaves. If you look at Noseypotters page I believe he has this plant growing over his wonderful concrete sculpture fence.

I'd agree with Sid - mine is over a pergola and grows at least two metres each year. It has a trunk now rather than a stem, and it covers the pergola which is about 5 metres by 3 metres. My husband has just given it a very hard prune as it grows over into the shrubs otherwise. It is very vigorous once it gets going! It had climbed up into the house guttering and was on its way up to the roof!

One thing to note with anything from the vitis family - if you prune then when the sap is rising, they bleed very badly (and often fatally). Any hard pruning should be done between leaf fall and Christmas to avoid this problem

Thanks all. I'll make sue I don't plant it too near the house. Thanks for advice on pruning Andrewr