Eventually the shaman decided if he couldn’t have her, no one could, and cast a spell turning Virginia Dare into a beautiful white doe. The top bud should be just above the soil surface. Grape vines not only produce sweet and versatile fruits, they add an element of drama to a garden or landscape. Plant the cuttings in a trench with the basal and center bud covered. Muscadines require much more space, and should be planted approximately 16 feet (4.9 m) apart. When she grew into a beautiful young woman, she became the object of affection for both a handsome chieftain and a powerful medicine man, Chelsea Weger writes on the North Carolina Museum of History website. For American and European grapes, plant each vine 610 feet (1.83.0 m) apart. But the Mother Vine’s story is intertwined, at least in ghost stories, with the doomed English settlers who landed in the New World in 1587 and vanished without a trace by 1590.Īccording to one legend, the first English child born in the New World, Virginia Dare, was kidnapped by the Croatan tribe on the island. Grapes can also be grown over trellises and arbors, or around a porch. This makes it very useful for covering old, unsightly fences of wood or chain-link and for growing over dead trees that cannot be removed. The vine’s lore may pre-date the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island, with some believing the scuppernong grapes it grows were cultivated by the region’s Native American tribes. The grape is a climbing plant, so it needs something to climb on.
By the 1840s, North Carolina vintner Paul Garrett’s “Virginia Dare” wine was the most popular wine in the nation, thanks in part to its mysterious and storied origins.