Annual climbers may be labour-intensive to cultivate, but they are fast growing and colourful, writes JANE POWERS
GARDENING, ASIDE FROM the growing of food, is suffering in these lean times. Perhaps the horticultural excesses of the boom years – when it was not unusual for people to buy mature plants costing an arm and a leg – made gardening seem like a luxury activity. But nothing could be further from the truth: not only is the cultivating of plants one of the most economical things that a person can do, it’s also one of the most positive. Growing plants is healing, invigorating and grounding. It teaches us patience and stoicism, it gives us joy when things go well, and sadness when they don’t. It gives us hope for the future, while making us pay attention to the present.
If you can rustle up a few euro for a packet of seed and some potting compost, you can start gardening. You don’t need fancy equipment. Seeds can be sown in plastic food trays, in yogurt pots and in cut-down milk cartons. When the plants are larger they can be moved into flower beds or into recycled containers such as buckets, baskets and basins – anything that has a drainage hole, or the potential for one, makes a willing receptacle.
Food is, of course, rewarding to grow, but there is another group of plants that is great fun and relatively fast: the annual climbers. They may be used to beautify and add height to a vegetable patch, or to cover an eyesore, or to drape over an awkward slope.
SWEETPEA
Most popular of the annual climbers are the sweetpeas, which offer both nose-fuls of fragrance and treats for the eye. The seeds are best sown in autumn, so that they make a strong root system that will support lots of growth in the following year. But they will still perform well if sown any time over the next two months.
They don’t need much warmth to germinate: if you have a porch or greenhouse, you can start them there, but it’s not necessary. Young sweetpea plants are supposed to dislike having their roots disturbed, and there is much talk of the best kind of pot in which to sow the seeds. You can shell out and buy “root trainers”, elongated growing modules that separate into two halves and which allow you to easily pluck out the rootball when transplanting. Or, you can make your own biodegradable starter pots, out of newspaper, or the inner core of toilet rolls. Just make sure they are damp when you plant them in their final positions, and don’t leave the paper or cardboard sticking up above ground, as it will wick the moisture away.
OTHER ANNUAL CLIMBERS
There are many other annual climbers that are easy to grow, and for which the seed is readily available. All, unlike sweetpea, are tender or half-hardy plants, that is, they come from warmer regions of the world, and they can’t cope with cold weather. In fact, some are perennial in their native lands, but here they are felled by frost. They need to be started indoors, with a little heat. When you plant them out in the garden, give them a warm and sunny billet, and make sure that all risk of frost has passed. If a surprise cold night arrives, you can rush out and insulate the plants with newspaper, sacking or whatever is handy.
Among the showiest are the various members of the Ipomoea genus, the morning glories, which earn their names because the flowers are short-lived yet splendid. If you’ve never grown them, start with ‘Heavenly Blue’ (a variety of I. tricolor from Mexico and Central America), which gives you the most bang for your buck with its startling, azure-toned trumpets, 10 centimetres in diameter. I. purpurea sports slightly smaller blooms with rich papal purple petals. This species also has many named varieties which come in white, pink, violet and a near-black liver colour (‘Kniola’s Black Knight’).
I. quamoclit, also known as star glory and cypress vine, has starry red tubular flowers, about two centimetres across, and ferny foliage. Another Ipomoea, which looks nothing like its siblings, aside from its climbing proclivities, is I. lobata. Its curiously inflated flowers are like small Christmas lights; they start out red, and fade to yellow and cream, which accounts for its common name of Spanish flag.
One more tubular-flowered climber is the Chilean glory vine (Eccremocarpus scaber). This orange-bloomed scrambler is grown as an annual, but in milder areas, it comes back each year. Another occasional returner, which is usually treated as a once-off plant, is the purple bell vine (Rhodochiton atrosanguineum) from Mexico. It needs a really warm position, and is most successful in conservatories or greenhouses. If you give it a horizontal network of strings, its aubergine-coloured bells hang down most prettily.
An annual climber that we don’t see enough of is the canary creeper (Tropaeolum peregrinum), a delicate-looking relative of the nasturtium. Everything about it is diminutive, from its mini-fig-leaf foliage to its yellow, wine-freckled flowers. It was the first climber I ever grew, and it remains a dainty favourite.
