Limited garden space? Try growing vertical

While I do have a garden in my new home in Wolfville, it’s much smaller than my former place, primarily by choice. Less actual garden area to use means more creative use of space. One of my favourite ways to add to the garden is the use of climbing, vining and trailing plants, or vertical gardening. Honeysuckle vine sprawls along my deck railing. Clematis scramble up a trellis. Annual vines such as morning glories, purple bell vine and sweet peas cascade out of hanging baskets or shoot up supports in containers along the walkway.

There are numerous benefits to vertical gardening:

• Space saving: Are you downsizing from a full-sized home to a condo, or living in an apartment with only a balcony for outdoor plants? Growing hanging or climbing plants along with regular species makes the most of your available space.
• Ease of tending: If you’re harvesting vegetables, herbs or berry crops such as strawberries, they’re right in front of you, so that you don’t have to bend, crouch or kneel to weed, water, and, of course, harvest your bounty.
• Few to no weeds: Except for those perennial vining plants (clematis, honeysuckle, climbing roses and others) that are planted directly into the garden, many of your vertical plants are in some sort of container, so they are untroubled by weeds. The perennials can be managed.
• Structure: Vertical plantings add structural interest to a garden, especially if they’re growing on a well-constructed and beautiful support, be it a trellis, arbour, pergola or obelisk.
• Privacy or beauty screen: Maybe you have a less-than-lovely view from one area of your garden, or you have a wall that is boring and plain. Cascading or vining plants growing up a trellis, or containers mounted against a wall, create living tapestries that brighten any sightline.
• Fewer pest problems: Depending on where you live, regular gardens may be ravaged by deer, rabbits or raccoons. Growing on trellises, in window boxes or hanging baskets on a deck can help to reduce that problem. If you’re using containers to grow your plants in, you’ll have little problem with weeds, but will have to water often, of course.

‘Sky’s the Limit’ climbing roses.

 

Plant support

What you use to support and grow your vertical plantings is as varied as the plants you select. There are pre-fabricated wall planters available online or at some garden centres, but they do tend to be pricy. If you or a family member have crafty inclinations, you can create wonderful supporting structures to hold plants or planting containers. Some people enjoy repurposing household items, such as an old picture frame, a wine rack, or even a packing pallet. But don’t despair if that’s not your thing: a support for a climbing plant can be as simple as strong gardening string, plastic or lightweight wire trellising mesh, fastened to a bamboo or wooden stake or tied to the top of an arbour.

Sometimes, you can use one type of plant to act as a living support for another. Perhaps the best-known example is the Three Sisters—corn, beans and squash—grown together, with the pole beans scrambling up the cornstalks and the squash growing at the base of the corn. Clematis look great growing up in the limbs of a large shrub, or a small deciduous tree, providing the clematis is getting adequate sunlight. Shade-loving climbers like climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala ssp. petiolaris) and Chinese wisteria will do fine growing up a tree for support.

Speaking of wisteria, it is very important that you do provide the right kind of support for climbing perennial vines. Some of them can get very large with thick main stems and dozens of vining branches, and will require regular pruning to keep them looking great. Wisteria is a marvelous and show-stopping vine but it does require a strong support, such as a timber-frame arbour or pergola.

If growing wisteria, you will need a strong support like this wooden arbour.

Pick your plants

There are numerous annual flowering vines or trailing plants that work beautifully in vertical plantings. You can purchase seeds for many of them and plant them directly into your container once the risk of frost is past, or purchase plants from your local nursery. I sow sweet peas and nasturtiums directly into the area of the garden where I want to enjoy them, but I purchase morning glory, fuchsia, black-eyed Susan vine (Thunbergia), sweet-potato vine (Ipomaea) and firecracker vine (Mina lobata) as started plants and tuck them into containers to add that vertical dimension.

Edible climbing plants include pole beans such as Scarlet Runners, tall peas, squash and cucumbers, and indeterminate types of tomatoes. Hardy kiwi has tasty, small fruit and is a tough plant—bear in mind however that you need both male and female plants to have fruit production. There are now ever-bearing types of strawberries which do very well in large hanging baskets, too. 

Perennial vines for light to medium shaded areas include Virginia creeper, Boston ivy, climbing hydrangea, wisteria, and periwinkle (Vinca), which also can be grown as a ground-cover.

Flowering vines for sun include all kinds of clematis, honeysuckles such as Graham Thomas and Mandarin, hops (yes, the plant that is used in brewing), and climbing roses such as William Booth, Robusta and Sky’s the Limit. Clematis come in a rainbow of flower colours, different flower forms (double, single, tubular) and include some compact varieties for those with more limited growing space.