Taking Your Garden To New Heights: Cultivating Climbing Plants

Climbers can scale fences, walls, rocks and even other plants in an effort to grow to full height. Gardeners who find climbers unwelcome in their yards are surprised to see how sinewy they are, how rapidly they develop and how tough it is to pull them out. But you can only appreciate these plants' true tenacity by seeing them in action. Watch Morning Glory's nubile green vines twine around the slenderest supports. See ivy try to sink its adventurous roots into anything, including the siding on a house. Observe climbing roses use their tendrils, leaves and thorns to tighten a grip around a trellis or other structure.

Climbing Plant Uses
The persistence of climbing plants is one of the reasons savvy gardeners love them and frequently use them to decorate their gardens. Climbing plants can camouflage garden sheds, walls or chain link fencing while softening the appearance of a garden. Since the plants grow quickly, climbers can be used as ground covering to hide bare spots or to cover hard-to-mow areas. Using trellises, bamboo tripods or other supports, some gardeners create beautiful screens with climbing plants to block unsightly views and create privacy. Others plant ivy around the house to age the appearance of their homes. Gardeners may even plant climbers on a southern wall of their home to keep the house cooler during the summer.

Most importantly, climbing plants can add a beautiful touch to any garden. Trellises aren't complete without honeysuckle or rose blooms hanging from them. Arbors lose their effect without grape vine tendrils curling off them. Even the most attractive fixture in a yard looks better with the slender green tendrils of a climbing plant wrapped around it.

Varieties
Nearly every plant group contains a climbing variety, so it is not hard to select climbing plants for your garden. Here are some of the more common climbing plants.

• Clematis produces beautiful, fragrant flowers that bloom in the late spring and early summer. Although most varieties of clematis grow well in moist soil with full sun and a little shade, there are several varieties of this plant, so you can match the variety to the plant's use.
• Creeping Jenny has small yellow flowers that bloom in mid-summer. An ideal ground cover, it grows quickly in moist, shady areas.
• Honeysuckle is another fragrant flower that grows well in full sun. With all the varieties of this plant available, you can select the right one for your garden. This hardy plant can be nurtured from cuttings and flourishes in nearly all climates.
• Jasmine may look like a delicate vine with star-shaped pink, white or yellow flowers, but don't be fooled. When planted in a sheltered area, jasmine can grow so rapidly and aggressively that it needs frequent pruning.
• Morning Glory is an annual that also grows quickly. With bright blue, pink, purple or scarlet blooms, this plant can grow in the ground or a container as long as the soil is well-drained and it is placed in a sunny spot.
• Passion Flower produces dramatic, scented flowers that are sure to bring butterflies to your yard. Although it needs protection from frost in cooler areas, you can cultivate this plant in any sunny spot.
• Roses, rambling or climbing, need no explanation. Since care of these climbers is the same as their non-climbing varieties, they need more attention than most climbing plants. The results are fragrant flowers that, in some climbing varieties, bloom in clusters.
• Sweet Pea comes in a range of colors and grows best in cooler climates. These annuals need full sun and well-drained soil. Sweet Pea thrives best when planted in a different place each year.
• Wisteria is another easy-to-grow plant. Although flowers won't appear right away, wisteria is breathtaking when in full-bloom. The plant can flourish in most soils, although the amount of sun it needs depends on the variety.

While all of these are flowering climbers, you can use many other climbing plants in your garden. Ivies from the genus hedera or parthenocissus can grow well in most soil types and conditions while providing beautiful foliage. Climbing plants, such as raspberries, actinidia and grapes, also have attractive foliage and flowers while producing fruit as well.

How to Choose the Right Variety
With so many climbing plants to choose from, the only difficulty is making sure the requirements of the plants you choose match the sun and shade, rainfall, zone and soil of your garden. Support is also very important.

According to botany resources compiled by Arthur C. Gibson at the Mildred E. Matthias Botanical Gardens at the University of California, Los Angeles, the shoots of most climbing plants grow rapidly, particularly when they are near a solid object or structure. Often their leaves will not grow unless the plant stem is secured around a support. Therefore, climbers should always have something to grow on; if they are not planted near a structure, one should be built of bamboo, wood, wire or other material. For more specific care as the climbers grow, follow the instructions that come with the seeds or plants.