Quick fix summer climbers

Bonnie Davies is an award winning garden designer who works at Burnham's family-run, Davies Brothers Nursery. Welcome to her blog where she shares her thoughts on all things green.

Are you an impatient gardener with an ugly fence who doesn’t like pruning climbers? If you are then you would love Fuchsia ‘Lady Boothby’, Thunbergia (or black eyed Susie) and Rhodochiton  which are annual climbers. They spread really quickly, are cheap and great value for money because they keep blooming all summer long.

The only potential downfall is that they are only for one season so being guaranteed to love them so much you will have to buy another one next year. At least that means you won’t have to delve into the gardening books to find out the best way to prune them, just pull them out and start again next year…easy.

We have a leylandii hedge in our garden and to give us more space we have lopped off the lower branches so that the trunks are bare up to the top of the fence behind. The soil around them is obviously quite dry and lacking in nutrients, but the border is fairly sunny. I tried growing Thunbergia (pictured) up the trunks last year to give some colour and draw the eye and entice you over to that side of the garden, and they performed magnificently! They work really well in these situations, because they can get by in shallow compost with a bit of slow release fertiliser mixed in, and they don’t need to get their roots out too much. This year I might try Rhodochiton instead, or perhaps a mixture of the two, because the colours will contrast vividly. I will take some pictures later in the summer to show you what I mean.

Happy gardening! Bonnie x