Come summer the garden will be packed, summer flowering perennials will be arching high above surrounding plants, their flowers reaching for the sky, and then a windy day comes and your previously spectacular blooms lies double over and broken, its top heavy blooms falling victim to a summer gusts.
It’s best to start supporting your garden plants long before they actually need it and now’s the time to get cracking with this.
A support added now can in turn be hidden by the plants growing foliage, and hopefully there will be little of the support to be seen, and giving a more natural look to the support offered.
I use the analogy of trying to install a support on a plant in the middle of the summer is like trying to squash someone into a corset – it just doesn’t look right!
Supports can come in many shapes and styles. A simple support can be an old mesh hanging basket, sitting upside down over a Peony Rose can offer some support 8” off the ground, the Peony growing through the basket, hiding the basket with its foliage.
Other simple supports can be a circle of fencing placed around Delphiniums, the Delphiniums growing up through the middle of the fence and the foliage disguising the fencing, but benefiting from the support offered.
Investments made in good supports, such as wrought iron, pay dividends long into the future, while we may think €15 spent on supports is expensive when compared to the €6 price of the plant, a few years of broken flowers and untidy borders and the supports suddenly makes it look like great value!
When visiting your garden centre this week look out for some Fluted Plant Supports and Grow Through supports, these are not only wonderfully practical but when used in the garden won’t take away from the colour of your plants.
Tags: