any ideas- decorative and cheap wisteria support?
cheerpeople
19 years ago
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copperfish
19 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (45)Has anyone tried wattle fencing? Works great for raised beds. That's what I did with these two. Instead of filling the whole thing with dirt I did the whole lasagna deal. Working like a charm. Mine are 1.5 feet high but you can go as high as you can find sturdy uprights for. All you need is bendable branches for the weaving, sturdy "sticks" for the uprights and compostable material for the middle. They look rustic and work beautifully AND I don't have to get rid of my brush from the winter....See MoreNeed cheap, quick support for pole beans
Comments (12)Use whatever you have on hand or locally. I've used all kinds of contraptions, but the best one was also the cheapest - cane poles and cotton string. I have found a stand of canes growing near a chipped wood dump site where I went to get free truck loads of that wonderful stuff. I cut a bunch of poles to use in my garden. When I went back to get another pickup load of chipped wood, I took a shovel with me and dug up a clump of cane, so now I grow my own 'poles'. Cane grows in many areas here in Oklahoma. I regrows itself every year, too. Makes a great accent plant in the corner of your yard and makes a good quick shade or screen. It even comes in a variegated form, which I am going to get a start of this summer. I like cane poles because they are lightweight, durable and will hold a lot of weight. They are easy to make into teepees, rectangular supports for tomatoes or trellises or whatever you like. I've used canes, saplings or branches (from pruning or fallen wood only), metal t-posts, and recycled wooden posts. I like natural materials best because they are lightweight and I can easily move them around where I want them. At summer's end, I simply collapse them and store them in the shed and they last me for years. When they deteriorate I can either chop them up and compost them or burn them and use the ashes in my gardens. I buy rolls of cotton twine (cheap & strong) for tying and sometimes use willow or some other limber plant material to add strength and beauty to my supports. and also save the strings off dog food bags. Sometimes I find gobs of baling twine laying in the road that fell off of a farm truck and I usually stop and get it. It comes in very handy for all kinds of jobs. I don't care that it only comes in baby blue or grape purple. The snow peas and green beans don't seem to care one way or another. (hehehe). Canes poles are especially great if you plan to dry your beans or peas on the vine. At summer's end, just pull the whole thing lightweight thing up out of the ground and shell the beans or peas right off the vines, as was mentioned by someone in a previous post. I would use 6-10 ft. poles. Beans are vigorous growers. ~ sweetannie4u...See MoreAny Ideas On How to Use Berry Plants Decoratively in Landscape?
Comments (1)just you: Whether or nor berry plants can be attractive as landscape specimens is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. And their beauty would be largely dependent on how well they were pruned, trained, and cared for. Most berry plants are not plant and forget specimens. In addition, all of the caneberry varieties, blackberries and raspberries included, are perennials that must be renewed and the old canes removed every season to maintain a presentable appearance. A possible exception is a planting of highbush blueberries, whose canes have more permanence and do not require much in the way of external support or training. Then there are the members of the currant and gooseberry family, as well as bush type cherries. There are other possibilities, but most require an individual judgment as to beauty. There will be no shortage of ideas if you begin to think about it. I have what could be called an "espalier" of Triple Crown blackberry plants that are very productive, but a non-French person might just call it a trellis. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA...See Moreany way to save a wisteria on a power pole?
Comments (3)Hi Cpc, I'm not sure either if you're saying they're just wanting to take down the pole or if they're determined to cut down the wisteria too, but if it's just the pole they want to remove, you should be able to cut the wisteria down to virtually nothing and still have it come back beautifully. It would probably be two or three years before it starts to bloom again, but it would be better than loosing it all together, and because of the established roots, you'd have a large, blooming plant again much faster than buying a new one or starting small ones from cuttings. So if they just want to remove the pole, I recommend cutting the vine down far enough to allow them access to the pole, and then install some sort of a sturdy structure on which the vine can reestablish itself. If they just want the wisteria removed from their pole, you might still be able to cut it back severely and then redirect the new growth onto a support you provide very close to the pole, but if they want to actually replace the pole with a new one, I kind of doubt that you'd be able to protect it enough when they dig the new post hole for it to survive. Here's some pruning info I copied from a site about wisteria. Whatever you decide, good luck, Skybird >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It sounds like what your wisteria needs is some form of "renovation" prunng. Renovation pruning can be done at any time, but it's the easiest to handle when the plant is dormant, so you can have a better appreciation of the configuration of the vines, and you don't have to deal with the mounds of foliage. 1. Be prepared to prune without mercy - you need all the cutting tools that you have in your arsenal, all freshly sharpened - secateurs, loppers, pruning saw, and even an electric reciprocating saw if what you have is a big specimen. 2. The idea of renovation pruning is getting it into a shape and size that you can live with and then some more - several feet more (remember, you have to allow for the fact that there will be regrowth after the pruning, and you have to allow room for that) 3. Start off with the major vines/trunks - take out any that you don't want or has strayed into a space that they shouldn't be. Cut those out completely down to their points of origins. 4. With the remaining vines, prune them back to 2-3 feet shorter than your envisaged dimensional boundary of the plant. 5. Next, turn your attention to the smaller, but well established and woody laterals arising from these main vines. Remove any laterals that are overcrowded. Shorten others to the desired length. To ensure some flowers for the current season, leave those laterals that end in a cluster of stubby laterals. These are the laterals - "spurs" - can be depended upon to continue to give you some flowers after the major pruning. 6. Now, you should have reduced that monster to a manageable size. For the final finishing touches, remove all young runners that are not needed, or that stray into places that you don't want to be - e.g., under the eaves, into the sidings, etc, of the house. Cut them back to their points of origins. Once these are removed, turn your attention to the remaining runners - reduce each and everyone of these to 3-6 buds. Once you have accomplished "renovation", don't expect much blooms for 2-3 years. The response of the wisteria to aggressive pruning is to "fight back" and literally explode with new runners. It's going to put energy into vegetative growth at the expense of flowering. This is where ongoing maintenance pruning is important: 1. Remove all unwanted runners right to their points of origins. 2. Prune back the others to 3-6 buds (leaves). Repeated pruning of these runners is what will eventually give you "spurs" of woody, short laterals that in turn will provide you with blooms. 3. You need to prune these runners all season long - I check and prune my wisterias once every 2-4 weeks. 4. in the winter, or better still, spring after flowering, size up the plant again, and perform minor "renovative" pruning to further get the plant into the shape you want. 5. Do not fertilise - they do not flower well if there is an over-luxuriance of vegetative growth. Over feeding also ends up with you fighting a constant battle with a monster of an plant which thinks it's an octopus. If you have well fertilised beds in the vicinity, the long reaching roots of the wisteria will eventually find them. I put a sharpened shovel through the soil between the wisteria and nearby beds, to prune any roots that might have wandered over to indulge in the nutrients over there....See Morelittlebug5
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I recently visited a garden where they used strong timber as arches,
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