Every house, verandah or wall is the more attractive for being adorned with climbing plants. They will fill your home with a verdant beauty, and many also have exotic, heady and evocative perfumes.
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But we should be careful in our choice, for some are such rampant growers that they can become monsters.
For instance, wisteria must have plenty of room and a very strong support, such as a pergola.
Jasmine, happy wanderer (hardenbergia) and some honeysuckles are very vigorous growers in the right conditions, and in a few years you can find yourself overwhelmed by them.
Kennedia macrophylla and kennedia nigricans are two native climbers that will go on the rampage given half a chance.
But there is an almost endless variety to choose from, and plenty of them are more gentle.
For lightweight climbers against a house wall what could be better than a clematis?
Most are deciduous and a few evergreen and there are hundreds to choose from.
The secret of growing them is to ensure that the roots are always cool.
This can be done by planting them on the shady side of a trellis so that they can grow up into the sun.
A lovely evergreen is clematis armandii apple blossom, with pink-tinted white flowers about 4cm across, beautifully scented in spring.
Another attractive climber is black-eyed susan.
Given good soil it will climb two or three metres, and be covered profusely with brilliant orange flowers with a jet black centre through summer and autumn
Gorgeous gerberas
The gerbera or African daisy is probably the most colourful and decorative of all the daisies.
They have a long flowering season, through summer into winter, and will last up to a fortnight when cut.
Their blooms are white, orange, yellow, pink or red. They can be single (pointed petals around a central disk) or double (with another row of petals replacing the central disk).
In the garden they are attractive in borders or the foreground of beds.
Coming from a warm climate they prefer a sheltered, frost-free position.
They will tolerate light frost and some shade, and they don’t mind if the soil is slightly acid or alkaline.
It should be sandy and well-drained and plenty of organic matter should be mixed in with it.
Don’t overdo the fertiliser or the foliage will grow at the expense of flowers.
After two or three years, gerbera plants will become crowded and will need to be lifted for division and replanted.
Traditional blooms
There’s nothing like hollyhocks and delphiniums to suggest the appearance of an old English garden.
Some gardeners have trouble growing both.
One reason might be that seedlings of both don’t transplant easily. They should be grown from seed.
The hollyhock (althaea) is a member of the mallow family, a native of China.
Seedlings must be transplanted when very small, if at all. They won’t stand moving when they reach any size.
Since they grow as high as 2.5 metres, they should be placed at the back of the garden, say against a wall.
They need full sun to flower well, and the soil should be enriched with well-rotted manure.
There are annual and perennial varieties. Perennials should be cut back to the ground after flowering.
There are many colours in hollyhocks nowadays.
Delphiniums too are either annual or perennial. The annual variety is also called larkspur.
They should also be treated the same as hollyhocks with some dolomite dug into the soil if it is at all acid.
Sow seeds where the plants are to remain. Don’t try transplanting them.
