Are you thinking of buying a climbing
plant? Particularly if you've got a slightly smaller garden, climbing plants
hugely increase the space you've got for flowers or even for growing fruit and
vegetables - but there are five questions you need to ask before actually paying
out money to buy a climbing plant. It's Alexandra here from the Middlesized
Garden YouTube channel and blog and the reason why these five questions
are so important is because before you take on a climbing plant, you need
to decide how much work you're going to do to maintain it. I asked garden
designer Posy Gentles (posygentles.co.uk) what climbers she recommends for her clients and she
said it really is important to know how much they're prepared to maintain them.
There's no plant in the world that is 'NO maintenance' - all plants will need some
maintenance and equally even the most high-maintenance climbers often only
need pruning two or three times a year but, of course, with a climber that may
involve ladders and so it's really worth thinking about what you want and why you
want it. So what are these five questions? I'll go into more detail about each one
of them as the video goes on but they are: One - is your climber
going to be planted in sun or shade? This is so important. Two: how big is your
climber going to get? Three: is your climber a slow growing or fast growing one? Four: how
does your climber climb? will it twine, does it have suckers or aerial roots, or
will it need full support? And five - which is the least important, although it's
one we all think about is - what are the flowers like? So firstly, is your climbing
plant going to be in sun or shade? Most people understand that if you plant
a climber in actual shade - there's a building that shades it all the time
or it's underneath a porch - it is in the shade, but the actual slightly sneaky
thing is that if you've got a completely open wall or fence and it's north
facing, that is also shade and one of the commonest mistakes that people make
is that they plant a climber against a North facing wall - and what it does is it
shoots up the fence and then it flowers in the neighbor's garden, because that's
the south-facing side and although some clematis do like shade, this particular
one is a great one for scrambling into the sun. So how big is the climber going
to get? Now when you buy a climber, it's probably going to be 18 inches or 2 feet
high - I mean it'll be a tiny little thing - and the idea that this could be 40 feet
in every direction in 3 or 4 years time is unimaginable, but actually some will
and I've certainly had real problems with climbers that have just gone too
far too fast. I planted a Banksia rose once and Banksia is really, really
fast growing and it goes for quite a long way and
it makes a great deal of bulk. And it went over a trellis and of course
it created a sort of sail effect and both the Banksia rose and the trellis
came down in a high wind, whereas if I'd chosen a much more modest climbing
Rose for that trellis, it would still be up there and this leads on to, of course,
how fast growing or slow growing is your climber? The advantage of a
slow growing climber is that although it will take several years, maybe even five
years to cover the area, that you'd like it to cover, you won't have to prune it
or maintain it as much once it gets to that stage. The advantage of a fast
growing climber is that you get the effect really quickly in a year or two,
you'll have quite a lot of coverage but from then onwards you will have to cut
it back often, like twice a year. Wisteria is a very fast growing climber and it needs
pruning twice a year and may also need more cutting back on top of that. Now if
your wisteria is really tall and goes up to the second floor then that may
involve ladders so that is why wisteria is quite a commitment - it's a
beautiful plant but it is a commitment. And then the next question of course
is how does your climber climb? Will it twine around a pole or trellis, or does
it have little suckers or aerial roots that will cling to a wall, and if so, will
it damage that wall? Or is it something that you need to tie in? wisteria is an
example of a plant that climbs by twining round something and because it's a
very strong plant, you need something quite sturdy like a pole or trellis or
really something quite strong, because the stems of wisteria that twine around
the trellis will slowly become branches - and they'll become bigger and thicker,
and actually I think rather beautiful but they will become part of the trellis,
so if there's any point at which you need to take the wisteria down, you will
also have to replace the trellis because you won't be able to cut it out. Having
said that it takes quite a long time it would take about ten years, probably
for the wisteria to get that thick and gnarled and the trellis might be on the
way out by then anyway, so it's not the end of the world. It's just something to
bear in mind but also the twiners like wisteria are quite capable of twining
around guttering, and if you're not keeping them under control, they could
pull the guttering down. If your plant climbs with suckers or aerial roots,
then it clings to the wall or fence so you won't always have to supply
much in the way of support, however this can damage walls and fences. The
Royal Horticultural Society says that ivy, for example, which is well known as a
clinger is unlikely to damage walls that are in good condition, but actually like
many people I live in an older house so I don't feel that I can really call
my walls as being in good condition at any time, so although we do have ivy
growing up walls in various places we do keep a very close eye on it, and
we do make sure it doesn't get out of hand, but I would definitely suggest
that you could put ivy on trellises, for example, or wooden fences because ivy
is a fantastic plant for wildlife. We've got a Virginia creeper behind us. It's a Parthenocissus henryana or Boston ivy. and it's not as fast growing as
the usual Virginia creeper. It goes up the wall with little tiny suckers and that hasn't damaged the wall. The Royal Horticultural Society in the
UK says that Virginia creeper is very very unlikely to damage any wall or
fence, in fact there is some evidence to suggest that it might even protect
a wall from the worst of, say, pollution and wind and so on. I have known in the
past that builders or decorators will say 'oh you can't have that climber
on the wall, it's damaging your house' - that's probably not always true, but I'd
suggest that you check quite carefully, and one thing of course is that
it does make it very difficult to maintain the wall, so if your wall or
fence needs a lot of maintenance, you probably need a climber that you can
actually cut down to the ground every so often, which will be fine if you do
cut it down to the ground. Wisteria, for example, can be cut down quite severely
and then it'll grow up again. And there are some Clematis that have to
be cut to 12 inches above the ground every winter. And if you have to do regular
maintenance on your wall or fence, you could of course consider annual climbers
things like Morning Glory or sweet peas. And then there are the climbers which
actually need full support, they need wires, they need to be tied in regularly
things like climbing roses come into this but also wall shrubs. The thing
to consider about wall shrubs however is that they often take up more space
in the ground than real climbers do, so if you buy a climbing rose or
wisteria or clematis, then it will take up hardly any space in your border,
so if you've got a small garden those are very good climbers, whereas if you're
going to use a wall shrub like a ceanothus or pyracantha, that is likely
to take up more space on the ground. My most easy care climber is a hardy
variegated Kiwi or acintidia kolomikta and I'll put that name with some
of the other names in the description below, because it doesn't exactly trip
off the tongue, and it has just stayed where it is - it doesn't grow very much,
we cut it back if it gets a little bit out of hand, but maybe once every two or
three years, it's got very pretty foliage and it sort of just behaves itself and
it gets loads of compliments. So once you've answered these four questions,
you'll have a shortlist of climbers and from that point on you can answer the
fifth question which is what flowers do I want? I really love it when I see
flowers that reflect something like a color scheme in a garden or front door
color or something like that. I think there's just some beautiful things - it's
partly why we all love wisteria so much - it just looks stunning when it's
out but it is a lot of work and I love this pink clematis which goes with my friend
Rosie's garden shed. I just think there are so many interesting and exciting
things you can do with flower colour, but don't forget the flowers are really only
on that climber for maybe three to five weeks a year, so you could also choose
a climber for its foliage, and the two climbers we've got at our backdoor which
are the Parthenocissus henryana (the Boston ivy) and the hardy variegated Kiwi
Actinidia kolomikta are both really there for their foliage, particularly the
Actinidia - it has just these beautiful pink tinged leaves and everybody loves
it. And sometimes, you'll see advice to choose a mix of climbers with
different flowering times, and like lots of advice this is very good advice,
provided you actually take a few minutes to go through what it really means.
Climbers with different flowering times often have different pruning times and
that means that if the climbers grow up and get twined with each other, you
won't be able to prune them at the right time because you'll be cutting away
flowers from one climber before the other one flowers, and will accidentally
take both lots of flowers with it, so either make sure that the climbers don't
get entwined with each other or choose climbers that have different flowering
times but a similar pruning schedule. For example, there are many climbing roses
that have to be pruned in winter or trimmed in winter and there's also a
group of Clematis including this Jackmanii that I have that have to be
cut down to 12 inches above the ground, also in winter, so you could combine
this Clematis and a climbing rose very well, but it's much harder to
combine some of the other climbing plants. I'll put the plant names in the
description below because they're not that easy to read when you
see them on the screen, and if you'd like more tips ideas and inspiration for your
middle-sized garden then do subscribe to the Middle-sized Garden YouTube channel
and thank you for watching, goodbye
