TREE’S A CROWD!

Keep trees and vines well separated in your garden, to avoid any squabbles!

while they’re both essential elements of a gorgeous garden, trees and climbing plants are best kept in their separate corners. Given a chance, vines will happily use trees as their means of support, and while this can look pretty in the short term, over time it can lead to a range of tree health problems developing.

PROBLEM PAIRINGS

Mostly, climbing plants

cling on by wrapping themselves around the tree trunk. In the case of vigorous growers, such as wisteria, they can end up strangling or girdling the trunk as it tries to grow and expand. And the problem isn’t just restricted to vines. Some scrambling shrubs, such as Monstera deliciosa, have aerial roots, which will cling vigorously to their host by encircling the trunk. Over time, this can become a tight mass of root matter.

In the case of trees that shed their bark, such as

most Eucalypt species, climbers give rise to other health problems. Old layers of bark are unable to fall away from the trunk, causing a thick mat to develop. This decaying organic matter, and its trapped moisture, raises the potential for rots and fungal diseases to develop. The other long-term

problem which can arise for vine-covered trees is one of instability. Bulky climbing plants can add a lot of additional weight to limbs and branches and, if heavy rain is added to the equation, they can break and fall.