A pergola-like structure attached to the side of a home can shelter an entry way and beautify a porch with lush greens and fragrant blossoms. Photo coutresy Walpole Woodworkers
By Leigh Barnes
When I think of my favorite gardens, both public and private, all have one factor in common—the clever use of garden structures. Fences, pathways, hedges, and walls set off and define their spaces.Gates provide an entryway or barrier. A gazebo serves as an outdoor room. Pergolas and arbors give shelter and often frame or point the way to some distant space. Wooden tuteurs and metal trellises stand sentinel in garden beds. These various structures and many others create boundaries and focal points. And best of all, these structures are all staging areas for plants.
Fences and walls enclose and protect; they also provide shelter and support for annual climbing vines like hyacinth beans or morning-glories, climbing nasturtiums, and some of the lush tropical vines. A shady wall or metal or wooden grid trellis attached to the side of a building can support the woody vines of Japanese Climbing Hydrangeas or a beautiful Silver Vein Creeper.
A pergola can be an entryway to a garden or a “destination”—the focal point in the distance that beckons a visitor to draw near and discover its sheltering cover. For large climbing vines—roses, passionflowers, moonflowers, clematis, and tropical climbers—a pergola or large arbor will provide a sturdy support for the weight of heavy canes and cascades of blooms. The art is in knowing the best combination of plant and structure.
Vine covered arches create an allee at Chanticleer. Courtesy Chanticleer Gardens, Photo by Doug Croft.
Many garden structures can be purchased ready-made from garden centers, big-box stores, or catalogues. Check web sites for sources and for plans to “build-your-own” wooden obelisks and arbors, gates, pergolas, and gazebos.
With ingenuity, imagination, and the right materials, it is also possible to create your own specialized structures tailored for specific needs.At Chanticleer Gardens in Wayne, Pennsylvania, gardeners devised a clever use of metal arches in an open garden area. To create an alleé for an 8-foot wide garden path, a series of 20-foot lengths of rebar (steel bar used to reinforce concrete) were bent into long curves and attached to double 5-foot lengths of rebar dug 3 feet into the ground, reinforced with welded cross bars, and backfilled with soil. Branches of juniper and false cypress harvested from pruning work were wired to each arch to act as a brace on which annual vines could be grown. Doug Croft, who tends these arches, has used various flowering vines, beginning in spring with sweet peas, followed by morning-glories, hyacinth beans, and orangeglow vine to bring color high above the ground.
Of course, these large structures are permanent elements in the landscape and may not be appropriate for smaller residential use. For townhouses, balconies and high-rise terraces, and small space gardens, one helpful way to create the illusion of height is with wood or metal towers and trellises. Because these forms are moveable, they can be used in a variety of ways that are difficult to achieve with fixed structures.
Sturdy wooden tuteurs work well in garden beds as a support for the canes of smaller climbing roses, tropical mandevilla vines, or one of the new patio clematis that rarely exceeds 4 feet. These towers can be used as formal elements by placing them in a strict geometric pattern and repeating the same plants on each tower. They can also be positioned where an occasional upright accent is needed in the garden.
Part of the garden I tend is still young, lacking strong vertical elements. It has been fun to experiment with variously shaped and sized metal trellises to give height and color to the border. The legs of large metal towers act as anchors in the soil and make it possible to have colorful flowers twining 8 feet skyward in areas that have an otherwise horizontal feel. Scanning the garden on a summer night, it is magical to see the silvery glow of moonflowers and white mandevilla vines rising high above the groupings of perennials and low shrubbery.
A wall-hung structure with a flower box supports both spreading and climbing plants. Photo courtesy Kinsman Company, Inc.
Combining containers and trellises makes it possible to have tall plantings in unexpected places. On my driveway, a 4-foot curved copper trellis links a 3-foot rectangular planter and the fence against which this box is placed. Blue skyflowers twine up and cascade over the fence all summer. In order to encourage flower growth on pergola supports (which are surrounded by bluestone), I place large containers at the base of each post and use tall, flat metal trellises to support mixed plantings of clematis and annual vines that climb up, over, and through the slat roofing of the pergola. The hot afternoon sun is filtered through these vines, creating lovely dappled shade on the terrace.
A small stone patio off the back terrace is in full sun. I wanted to create a little shade by using a 7-foot metal trellis with a 2-foot square base, but it was too large to fit into even the biggest containers. Because the base was flat (no support legs), it could rest directly on the stone terrace. The tower fit nicely over a large, low bowl planter filled with a mix of morning-glories and skyflowers. It works well and is covered all summer long in beautiful blue blooms, but in the future, I may also consider a combination of red cardinal vine and orange/red Mexican flame vine for another colorful display all summer.
No matter what the setting—even where there is no garden—the use of structures can create vertical space for flowers. Almost any outdoor space, large or small, can be beautified with a trellis, tuteur, pergola, or arbor. If you haven’t tried “growing up,” give it a go—the process can be fun and the effect a beautiful addition to your garden.
Leigh Barnes is a frequent contributor to ChesapeakeHome.
Contacts:
Chanticleer Gardens: chanticleergarden.org or 610-687-4163
Country Casual: countrycasual.com or 800-284-8325
Kinsman Company: kinsmangarden.com or 800-733-4129
Longwood Gardens: longwoodgardens.com or 610-388-1000
Smith and Hawken: smithandhawken.com or 800-940-1170
Walpole Woodworkers: walpolewoodworkers.com or 800-343-6948
