Some plants perform double duty by being adaptable enough to be used in the outdoor garden during the summer but when brought indoors for the winter serve as attractive houseplants in the interior landscape. I bought a plant last spring called big leaf wire vine (Muehlenbeckia complexa). There is a “little leaf” variety as well. I bought a plug from a greenhouse in April and potted it up into a six-inch pot when I got home. Then in late May I added the plant to a container on the back patio to see how it would perform.
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My wire vine performed well; I used it as a “ground cover” in a large pot of cannas which don’t produce a lot of foliage at pot level and I had read that wire vines are often used for this purpose. Sure enough the wire vine soon covered the soil in the large pot beneath the cannas and cascaded in an attractive fashion down the front of the pot as well.
When I emptied the pot in the fall to put the cannas into winter storage, I discovered that wherever the long, wiry stems had touched the soil, roots had formed so in fact the top of the soil in the pot was completely covered with vine and it was thoroughly rooted all over the soil surface. I simply pulled up a few chunks of the vine and potted them up into a hanging pot which I hung in the sunroom; the plants didn’t even wilt, they simply kept on growing! My wire vine developed into a lovely hanging specimen in the sunroom and appears healthy and vigorous. It gets bright indirect light as it is hung too high to receive the direct rays of the sun, but it seems happy with this amount of light, although it was in direct sun outdoors.
Muehlenbeckia is a tough, resilient plant that is used extensively in warmer climates (it is a Zone 8 plant) as a ground cover but in our area I think it is best used as a pot plant. In warmer areas both the little leaf and the big leaf types are used as ground covers where their long, intertwining stems produce thick mats of emerald-green foliage – which my plant did in my canna pot as well. I also noticed during the summer that my wire vine was drought tolerant; it never wilted even when I accidentally allowed the soil in the pot to get quite dry. The wire vine didn’t seem to suffer from any insect or disease problems and the plant just kept growing vigorously with ordinary care. I used common soilless mix as a potting medium both indoors and outside and I used a general 20-20-20 soluble fertilizer.
Indoors the plant has made a wonderful hanging plant – its long, wiry vines are covered with small, round, emerald-green leaflets and the plant produces innumerable stems so the pot is full and bushy. I do notice indoors that some of the leaves dry off and die, so I take the plant down from its hook every couple of weeks and give it a good shake to dislodge the dry leaves – which strangely enough remain green even after they are dry. Enough new leaves and stems seem to be produced, however, so that the loss of these few leaves is not even noticeable. The common name “wire vine” certainly is apt for this plant since it is as tough as wire, yet at the same time makes a beautiful foliage plant. Wire vine is a good, easy-care foliage plant to add to outdoor containers or to serve as a hanging plant in the interior landscape. Give Muehlenbeckia a try – you will appreciate its contribution to the beauty of both your indoor and your outdoor gardens.
– Albert Parsons writes from Minnedosa, Manitoba
