A vine covers vertical surface, which on a small property is often the only space left. It is also the plant most often bought without the one decision that determines whether it ever climbs.
A vine has no structure of its own, and how it attaches decides what it needs to attach to. Some wrap their whole stem around something and need a post or a wire — they cannot grip a flat wall or a wide beam. Some climb with thin coiling tendrils that need something slender to catch: wire, netting, thin lattice, never a four-by-four. Some attach directly to a flat surface with aerial roots or adhesive pads and need no structure at all. And some do not climb — they lean, and somebody ties them in every year, which is a maintenance line rather than a plant.
Match the vine to the support before planting, not after. A twining vine on a flat wall will never get hold of it and will sit there looking like a failed plant.
Two cautions worth having before you buy. A mature vine is heavy and wet snow makes it far heavier — a trellis held to siding with two screws comes off the wall in a storm, so the support gets lagged into framing. And the self-clinging vines should not go on wood siding, stucco, or mortar that might ever need repointing. On sound masonry or a standoff frame they are fine. Anywhere else they are a repair bill arriving in eight years.
