Thicket Creeper

Parthenocissus inserta

Thicket Creeper, also called False Virginia Creeper or Woodbine, is a hardy, fast-growing North American native vine valued for its adaptability, wildlife appeal, and ease of management in the landscape. It thrives along woodland edges, riverbanks, hedgerows, and fence lines—giving rise to its common name. Closely related to Parthenocissus quinquefolia (Virginia Creeper) and often difficult to tell apart, it shares the same foliage and brilliant autumn color, but differs in how it climbs and anchors itself to surfaces. Unlike Virginia Creeper and Boston Ivy, which cling aggressively to walls using numerous adhesive pads, Thicket Creeper’s tendrils bear adhesive discs only sparingly — roughly one-tenth as many as its cousins based on our observations. As a result, it does not cling tightly to brick, siding, or stonework, making it easier to direct or limit its growth. Gardeners often find this quality makes it easier to control the vine’s path of climb, especially when training it to fences, arbors, or other supports. Another noteworthy distinction is in its climbing method: whereas many non-adhesive climbers such as Morning Glory, Trumpet Creeper, Wisteria, etc. wrap their main stem around supports, Thicket Creeper uses its forked tendrils themselves to twist and bind around structures, occasionally assisted by its sparse sticky pads. This behavior allows the stem to remain mostly upright and free, while the tendrils perform the gripping. These subtle differences in growth habit give the vine a lighter touch on support structures while still providing reliable climbing ability. The foliage consists of palmately compound leaves with five sharply serrated leaflets, bright to medium green through the growing season and turning deep crimson or burgundy-red in Autumn, adding a bold seasonal accent. Clusters of inconspicuous greenish flowers in summer give rise to small, dark-blue berries on red pedicels, a favored food source for songbirds and other wildlife. The stems are slender and round in cross-section, weaving naturally through surrounding vegetation to gain height. In favorable conditions, Thicket Creeper can grow 30–50 feet in length and extend 6–10 feet annually, thriving in full sun to partial sun and tolerating a wide range of soils and moisture levels. Because it relies on tendril grip rather than aggressive adhesive discs, it is generally less damaging to surfaces and simpler to redirect or prune back compared to Virginia Creeper or Boston Ivy.