Nick Bailey on how to get a second flush of colour in your garden
With a bit of clever planting, spring shrubs don't have to fade into the background now!
As spring fades and British summer takes hold, our gardens are in transition. Vibrant bulbs have faded away and the flush of flowers provided by spring shrubs has ceased. Other plants, of course, come into their own now, with roses and perennials in full swing as the spent spring shrubs fade into the background.
But this needn’t be the case. With some clever planting it’s possible to keep those springflowering shrubs dripping with colour all summer long. What I’m talking about is using annual climbers to grow through and over spring shrubs, effectively
using them as a climbing frame and reanimating them with colour and movement. Pairing the right annual climber with the right shrub is a delicate art though. If the climber’s too rampant it might smother the shrub and stop it photosynthesising, but if it’s too meek it might not be forceful enough to wind its way up established woody branches.
To get the technique to work there are a few simple steps to follow, starting with buying your annual climbers. These are available at garden centres now as young plants. Once you get them home pot them on into a 2-litre container with 1m (3¼ft) bamboo cane and let them grow on for a couple of weeks. This is important because the climber needs to be big enough at planting time to not be instantly shaded out by its host shrub. Once you’ve got 70cm-1m (2¼-3¼ft) of growth on the climber prepare a planting pit 40-50cm (1¼-1¾ft) away from the base of the shrub on its sunniest side. Once you’ve se led the climber in, tilt its cane toward and into the host shrub so it knows where it’s meant to be heading. If there’s enough growth you may be able to tie a few of the climber's stems onto the host shrub. Keep it well watered and fed, redirecting any wayward stems back onto the host as the weeks roll on. By midJuly the climber should be well established and will churn out vibrant blooms until the frosts.
Not all shrubs can withstand being flanked by an annual climber but Viburnum bodnantense, Nandina domestica, Pi osporum tenuifolium, buddleja, spiraea and mahonia are all solid hosts. To flank them choose any of the following selfclinging/twining annual climbers: Cobaea scandens, Eccremocarpus scaber, Rhodochiton purpureum, thunbergia, Ipomoea lobata or
I. purpurea. They’ll all work well but if you’re trying this for the first time the ipomoeas are the fastest and easiest to establish.
The technique might require a bit of effort, but for minimal cost it’s more than possible to turn a spring-flowering shrub into one that also hosts blooms through summer and autumn.