Vines Over the Arched Trellis, Gardening

Wild Passionflower Vine, a native plant

My mostly naked garden arch without much vine cover.

I bought this clematis plant in sad and sorry shape last month.
With some attention and fertilizer it has come to this. A good
candidate for my arch. I believe it is H.F.Young.

     An arched trellis adds such a charming element to garden design. I have wanted one for a very long time. No matter how many I have bought, or planned, it just never seems to materialize the way my mind imagines it should be. I currently have an arch over a walkway in our garden, but despite all of my efforts it still has not filled out into that flower strewn gateway I desire. Now mind you, I am not giving up. When one plant fails to make muster, it is replaced by another vying for the honor of crowning the arch. The search continues for the perfect plant for my circumstances.

hyacinth bean plant

     This year has brought several contenders for the honored spot. First I tried to cultivate a Hyacinth Bean vine. It is a very hardy annual vine. Hyacinth Beans have a strong overwhelming structure. They start out somewhat slowly, then around the end of July they seem to kick to attention and grow exponentially within a short period of time. One day it seems to be struggling along, and the next day it seems as if it was given an injection of growth hormone and it doubles in size. The Hyacinth Bean has a beautiful purple plume of a flower head. The flower heads are borne high above the vine and present a lovely contrast to the blue-green-violet tone of the leaves and vine stalk.  A Hyacinth Bean loves sun, heat and dryness, all good qualities when you live in a sandy beach area. Unfortunately I live in a sandy soil area, but the spot where I have put the arch is under a canopy of Crape Myrtle trees which has cut the sun from fully bathing the vine in light over the course of the day.  I believe it is this canopy of trees that have stymied the growth of my Hyacinth Bean vine. It has grown, it has formed some flowers, it even has formed some pods with seeds which are the aftermath of the flowers. Unfortunately the Hyacinth Bean has not bee the solution to my design problem. It is a great plant, as long as you can tolerate the self seeding that will occur the next summer.  A friend has a gorgeous Hyacinth Bean vine hugging her picket fence this summer. It is a delight, well worth the investment, and very impressive. I would recommend it to anyone with a sunny spot and the willingness to water it frequently enough for it to establish itself. Unfortunately it did not meet the demands of my location.

Clematis Virginiana Virgins Bower, small flowers

EZ grower....Clematis Jackmani as seen on Monrovia.com

Clematis Vienetta

My next candidate for the honored spot was a clematis. The clematis is a perennial vine with blooms that can be small as a half dollar or a flower as big a a dinner plate. Do a google image search and you will find a variety of forms, like no other plant! A clematis vine would be the likely choice for crowning an arch, but not in this case. Even so, I gave it the old college try.  I tried it on the sunnier side of the arch. I watered it profusely, and I cultivated it with compost, manure and top soil. None of these amendments seemed to make a difference.  It met the same fate as the Hyacinth Bean Vine. It survives, it made growth spurts, but it never grew to the point of putting out enough new shoots to cover a substantial portion of the arch. I have left it in place, but there really is not much hope that it will increase in size, even with another  year of growth under its belt....unless I trim the tree branches above it.

Morning Glory, annual vine

In desperation I tried another annual vine. Many spots in my garden had volunteer Morning Glories, left over from last year's annual plantings. I planted Morning Glories last year to attract Hummingbirds,and it worked. The Hummers loved the flowers, and gave us a great show all summer by buzzing the blooms and visiting our feeders. As I saw the MG volunteers popping up in the garden beds, I thought I should try them on the trellis arch. After gathering a plant or two that seemed to be hardy, I placed them at the base of the trellis and continued to water and fertilize them with the Clematis and Hyacinth Vine planted there earlier in the summer.    The Morning Glories have survived, and put out lots of new growth, but that hardy growth required to cover the trellis arch still eludes the plantings. I have considered a Passionflower vine, but obtaining one has eluded me. What can I say, just because we plan well, and hope for the best, our gardens don't always turn out the way we intended or hoped. A disappointment but what can I say. You win some you lose some. It is the journey that counts...... I guess.









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