Working with climbers

Climbing plants have a place in every garden. In a large garden, they are perfect for creating or greening up garden walls such as pergolas and trellis, which are important in dividing up your large space into usable outdoor rooms.

For smaller spaces, climbers unlock the option of growing on the vertical space to complement the limited horizontal space.

Climbers are categorised according to how they attach themselves onto the structure they are mounted. There are twiners, attaching climbers and hooked climbers.

It may be helpful to get a good understanding of the mechanism used by a climber before using it as this will determine the kind of structure your plants will grow on.

Starting point

Although the usual considerations of hardiness, preferred site, best soil type and speed of growth apply to climbers as much as any other plant, it is often easier to consider what you intend to do with yours and use this as the starting point for your selection.

Here are a few tips to guide you in deploying climbers in your garden.

Pergolas and trellises

When selecting climbing plants to grow on trellises and pergolas, it is important to keep in mind their intended use.

Are you looking for shade or filtered sunrays under the structure where you can relax or a more ornamental focal point to punctuate your garden? These are some of the questions you will need to answer before deciding what kind to go for.

In any case, a slow growing, evergreen, twinning or hooking climber would be preferable in this category. Wisterias, clematis, climbing roses and bougainvillea come to mind. The latter is, however, not a true climber and would have to be trained to grow on the structure.

Before planting, it is worth taking the time to check to make sure that the pergola is in a good state of repair and is strong enough to support what may become quite a substantial weight over the years.

Growing on walls

You may want to grow climbers on a wall to emphasise some architectural highlight or to spice-up an otherwise uninspiring facade. The growth rate is one major consideration. A plant, which takes forever to get going, can cause as many problems as one which rampages away and needs clipping every five minutes.

Bear in mind that growing conditions next to the wall can be very different; the soil may be drier than elsewhere in the garden and the temperatures can vary greatly, depending on the direction the wall is facing. Although this can sometimes work in your favour, it is good practice to get a good grasp of the plants preferred growing conditions.

Living screens

Few plant types are better at providing a good screen to hide an ugly fence, an old tree stump or some other eyesores in your vicinity than climbers.

Such areas provide a perfect excuse to give garden-room to some of the more rampant and invasive kinds of climbers that you simply could not let loose anywhere else.

The orange flowering trumpet vine is perfect in this category. It will do more than just hide the flaws; it will also attract birds and beautiful butterflies to your garden.

Photo: www.oregonlive.com

The writer is a landscape architect