Natural support for climbers and twiners

One evening, I was sitting on the bench beside our pond, watching spring arrive. The ice had nearly melted on the pond, and the buds on the swamp maples were showing red.

The natural geometry of up, down and level seemed like a good framework with which to approach spring and the garden chores soon to be done. Plants would soon be sending their stems upward, and a long list of them would succumb to gravity without a human assist.

Our household boasts a large collection of metal plant supports, including peony rings and the galvanized steel pipes we use to trellis vining crops such as tomatoes and beans. The bean vines wrap themselves around the strings on their own, but with the tomato vines, which are not twining, plastic clips that encircle both vine and string help support the plants, especially when weighed down by heavy fruits.

For those who find the gleam of a steel bar intrusive, there are materials that blend in better with their surroundings. My husband has built trellises from straight young saplings, cut from the woods. He’d buy copper, T-shaped plumbing connectors and whittle the ends of the saplings so that they could be inserted tightly into the three openings of the T.

Tall pea vines can be supported on similar trellises, though we provide plastic or nylon netting rather then strings. Or go the natural route and use pea brush instead or cut twiggy birch branches and stick them in the ground for the peas to climb.

One of the most versatile and popular natural supports is bamboo. Bamboo plants, of which there are many species worldwide, are evergreen