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How to plant climbers: a beginner's guide by garden expert Helen Yemm

how to plant climbers beginners guide - Andrea Jones/Garden Exposures Photo Library
how to plant climbers beginners guide - Andrea Jones/Garden Exposures Photo Library

Every week, Telegraph gardening expert Helen Yemm gives tips and advice on all your gardening problems whether at home or on the allotment. If you have a question, see below for how to contact her.

How to plan and plant climbers

This is a good time to add some icing to the garden cake by planting a climber or two. But not just any old climber, in any old place and in any old way, otherwise the disappointing mishmash can all end in tears.

Whereas in nature climbers use other plants to achieve often limitless heights, in a garden many of us plant them on walls and fences, to clamber over pergolas and up various free-standing structures. Here are some points to consider:

  1. Know your climbers: A few (climbing hydrangea, ivy) cling with aerial roots and need brick or rough mortar (rather than wooden fences) on which to get a grip. Some (jasmine, honeysuckle) twine upwards and therefore need vertical supports and careful pruning once they achieve their limit. Others (clematis) loop their leaf stalks or produce springy tendrils (ornamental vines) to cling on to anything fine enough (wooden fences, structures and trellis need therefore to be clothed in chicken wire). Climbing roses will need the space to have their stems fanned out and tied in (with Flexi-Tie, ideally to strong, horizontal wires).

  2. Support: Whatever you choose, it is important to get the right supports in place before you plant, so you can start your plant on the right path upwards – and can remove as soon as possible the ubiquitous bamboo cane/ stapled green plastic ties it was inevitably sold with.

  3. Site: Climbers (many of them natural woodlanders) grow compulsively upwards towards the light, to flower in the sun. Few will perform well on a sunless north-facing wall (even “shade-loving” climbing hydrangeas do far better with more sun). Getting the site right is most important in the case of planting on a shared fence – your neighbours will be delighted if you get it wrong and all the flowers face in their direction.

  4. Space: Plant climbers at least 45cm away from a fence or wall to ensure they have enough root room/moisture. Be aware, particularly, of what is planted on the other side of fences (conifers? laurels?) that will provide damaging competition.

  5. Soil improvement: Climbers are greedy feeders – they need to be, to produce all that top growth. Good soil preparation before you plant is important. For a large clematis, for example, excavate and improve with organic matter an area at least three times as wide as its pot and half as deep again, and mulch after planting, too. Occasionally water deeply in the first summer after planting.

Three things to avoid

  • Don’t be tempted to shoehorn a needy, greedy climber into a strip of bad soil between a wall and path. It will probably die, and if by some miracle it doesn’t, it may end up blocking the path.

  • Beware of planting the most rampant clematis (C. armandii, C. montana) in a small space.

  • Many climbers are disappointing when grown in containers. There are some exceptions (e.g. compact clematis bred for the purpose), but most do best with deep cool root runs and even moisture, both hard to guarantee in a container.

dogwood tip
dogwood tip

Letters from readers

A weedy bed of roses

We have a large rose bed that over the last five years has become inundated with a dark green, bristly grass. I am constantly digging it out – an utterly thankless task. Have you any ideas as to how I can get rid of it?

AG, Kent – via email

field wood-rush - blickwinkel / Alamy
field wood-rush - blickwinkel / Alamy

Your accompanying picture shows a nasty grasslike weed, field woodrush (aka Luzula campestris) that spreads by stolons (runners) and seed.

It normally features in my inbox as the scourge of frustrated owners of bad lawns that are struggling on damp, poor, acid soil. Your picture also revealed that the soil in your rose bed looks dire – water logged, stony and (I hate to say this…) under-cultivated: therefore it occurs to me that maybe the source of the “infection” is your lawn.

A “cure” for an infestation of acid-soil-loving woodrush involves changing the soil pH by applying chalk. I therefore suggest that you first establish your soil pH (using a standard testing kit, from garden centres) and if it is indeed acid, that you remove as much of the “grass”, above, with its runners, as you can by hand, and then apply a thick mulch (at least 10cm) of mushroom compost, which contains chalk, over the entire bed, ensuring that the bases of the roses are kept clear of it.

This will gradually make the soil less acidic and boost the organic content of your poor soil, thereby improving the roses as well as, hopefully, smothering the woodrush out of existence.

An old hedge under siege

We have a 50-year-old hornbeam hedge which seems to have developed what looks like lichen. Will it harm the hedge, and should I treat it in any way? We have dug out a great deal of ivy from the roots so it will have more light. Should I feed it, and if so, what would you suggest? We are very keen to preserve the hedge, as in winter and summer it is a lovely barrier.

Alison Scrimshaw – via email

There is nothing much you can do about the crusty greenish-grey lichen that has started to proliferate on your elderly hedge, but rest assured that it is highly unlikely to kill it.

Lichen is invisibly spread by airborne spores and seems, if anything, to be making more regular appearances on trees and woody garden plants (is it because our air is becoming cleaner? I should like to think so). But it does always take hold on plants that have become very slow-growing, which I suggest is the case with your hedge, largely due to the presence of the invasive ivy with which it has had to compete for the stuff of life.

You should definitely try to boost your hedge by feeding it with a general fertiliser (e.g. blood, fish and bone). This will unfortunately also have the effect of giving any remaining ivy a bit of a kick-restart, so I suspect your battle with it will have to be an ongoing issue.

 

GET IN CONTACT | Do you have a question for Helen Yemm?
GET IN CONTACT | Do you have a question for Helen Yemm?