Perhaps no better fruit is adapted to South Carolina’s climate than muscadine grapes. A cousin of table and wine grapes, muscadines are native to the Southeast and very tolerant of our heat, humidity and pests. They come in two fruit colors, bronze and black. Gardeners looking to plant muscadines can choose from many excellent fresh-eating and winemaking varieties in either color.
Muscadine vines are vigorous and will climb almost any structure they can wrap their tendrils around. This means you can train them onto a trellis, arbor, banister or fence. Since they are deciduous, they can be strategically planted to cast shadows on shade-loving perennials, or they can also be trellised on the south side of a structure to shield it from the sun.
Planting a single vine will yield fruit only if you plant a self-fruitful variety. I recommend Carlos, a versatile, self-fruitful bronze variety, and Cowart, a high-quality, self-fruitful black cultivar. Other varieties are female and will require you to plant additional Carlos or Cowart vines to provide pollination.
Annual pruning will be the biggest challenge to this multifunctional landscape feature. To prevent the vines from becoming tangled masses of unproductive wood, you will need to remove most of the previous season’s growth, back to the fruiting spurs, each winter.
Vines need to be cut back severely each winter in order to produce a new crop of grapes.
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