Pet Safe Vines?

[Scott Hildenbrand]

As some of you had seen I'd been working on a 34x34' dog run off the back of our house for our hounds.

I'm finished with the fence and am working on a deck section and 8 foot ramp that will lead from the house to ground level for the dogs.

Anyway, the deck is built with a height of 3', and a final height of 5' with the railing. The face side I'm going to use lattice which will go the full 5 foot height.

I'm going to put a vine on it, but need advice on what would do best.

During summer it gets part sun from 11am till dusk. Fall it's mostly shaded by the house.

I'd need something that is totally pet safe, just in case they decide to munch on it. I'm not sure which ones are as none of the sites seem to cover this info.

The more flowers, the better, but anything is good. I'm going to end up training what ever grows there to grow along the balusters of the full

8' ramp as well as on the 5' deck section.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance! :)

[Bill R]

As a general rule, any vine (or plant) that has berries on it is NOT safe around pets. One safe vine that I would consider is Clematis. There are lots of varieties that will give you a lot of color and some nice foliage and there is almost no maintenance with them. It takes them a few years to grow and you need to pick the ones that are right for your area and situation.

Also, vines like morning glory (annuals) grow quickly and (usually) reseed themselves every year and they come in lots of colors.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

So Clematis is indeed pet safe then.. Good.. It's one of the ones I was leaning towards using... Best thing about Clematis is you can easily train the main branch and prune the crud out of it back to the main without much problem.

Glad that you brought up Morning Glory, since I was hoping to grow some on the fence itself as well as some Cypress Vine so those two are good options for it then.

[John McGaw]

[Sheldon]

Grapes... concords smell heavenly.

[mleblanca]

Both Clematis and Morning Glory are toxic to animals and people. Try this site

Why not grow something you know is edible, such as berries or grapes? Emilie NorCal

[Eggs Zachtly]

[...]

That depends solely on the variety. Some get cut back, at the end of winter, to 8-12".

Just pointing out that it's not always safe to generalize plants' care only by the genus. ;)

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Thanks for the link, though it errored on load I did google for aspca toxic plants and pulled it up.

I see cypress vine is not on the list so puts it on the possibles.

As for growing something I know is edible, good Q.. I really don't have an answer for that one. Though I'm not sure I'd do grapes.. Will have to look into berries, so long as the plant doesn't have thorns.

Something else that came up was a Chocolate Vine, which seems to be 100% edible. Seems that it's considered a pest in KY however.

Purple passion flower seems to also be on the edible list, as well as Scarlett runner beans.. Anyone have experience on those three?

[Scott Hildenbrand]

True, true.. My miss-information there.. ;) I'll re-phrase that to most can take a heavy pruning.. :D

[Eggs Zachtly]

Just make sure, if you buy one, you get the one you're expecting. That's what I'm on about. ;)

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Does anyone have any experience with Chocolate Vine (Akebia)? It's at the top of my list of possible plants for on the dog ramp which will be safe for them and edible for us.

[Eggs Zachtly]

Thorns would pretty much guarantee the animals won't chew on the vines. ;)

[rest snipped]

[enigma]

Scott Hildenbrand wrote in news:9B5_i.3128$ [e-mail]:

i grow scarlet runner beans. they're just an heirloom runner (vine), so nothing poisonous about them. the beans are good very small *or* full grown. there's a not so tasty week or so between the stages where thay're no good as shell beans & too tough for using like snaps. they also make good dry beans... however they *are* a very lurid pink & purple spotted combo. they turn green when cooked fresh, but the dry beans stay kinda pink/purple. hummingbirds like the flowers. they need a fairly warm soil to sprout, but they grow fairly quickly, not very branchy/bushy, so plant fairly close if you want coverage of the screen. purple podded string beans have similar growth habits & nice purple flowers (scarlet runner flowers are red & white). make sure you don't get the bush type on those. either one if you keep the beans picked, they keep growing & blooming until frost. lee

[Kay Lancaster]

A few starters:

Ornamental gourds; squash; cucumbers scarlet runner beans pole beans asparagus/yardlong bean rambler roses

keep the beans picked inside the pen -- raw seeds are slightly toxic.

My idiot lab bites the vines off the pen when he's bored, so now he gets "six shooter" type tall corn outside the pen for shade. My uncle's labs never bothered gourds, squash or morning glories, but would eat any cucumber they could reach.

[Kay Lancaster]

No grapes around dogs. There have been a number of reports of fatalities in dogs with relatively small doses of either.

Which Passiflora species? At least some of them are toxic. (Sorry, I don't do common names well.)

Hops might be another possibility, but check on that one with veterinary toxicologists -- I'm unsure of that, but will throw it out as a potential. And there are some ornamental hops vines that aren't too bad looking.

Kay

[John M. Gamble]

Hmm. I would still suggest sweet peas, which according to

is only toxic if large quatities of the seeds are eaten. Which, given the growing habit, isn't likely - you'd have to deliberately collect them.

And they have lovely flowers.

[Bill R]

The problem with sweet peas is that they only look good in the spring. When the hot weather comes they stop blooming and (around here) by June they look really bad (yellow foliage, no flowers).

[dr-solo]

grapes. tough. edible. Ingrid

[dr-solo]

wild grapes. dogs dont really go for them. all our dogs eat grapes with no "toxic" effects. Ingrid

[enigma]

[e-mail] wrote in news:473e2c3f$0$1346$ [e-mail]:

grapes & raisins can cause kidney failure in canines. toxicity varies from dog to dog, but the damage is cumulative. it is not wise to let your dogs eat grapes or raisins. lee