Climbing Plants

Climbers do the work of a screen in the width of a garden bed. A 300mm strip along a boundary, the bare face of a steel fence, a pergola carrying too much afternoon sun: these are the jobs that suit a vine and defeat a shrub. Reach for this group when you need cover in a vertical plane and no room for a canopy. Tube stock at 70mm and 140mm covers a long run of fence cheaply, while the 45L star jasmine and 200L wisteria put height on a structure in the first season rather than the third.

How a climber holds on decides the hardware. Twiners wrap, so fix wire, mesh or a trellis 40mm to 50mm off the surface before planting. Star Jasmine - Trachelospermum jasminoides is the usual pick, evergreen, scented from spring into early summer and steady rather than rampant. It is also stocked staked and tripod-trained if you want a finished look sooner. Purple Coral Pea - Hardenbergia violacea is the native option, lighter in habit, flowering from late winter into spring. Bower Vine - Pandorea jasminoides Bower of Beauty is evergreen and fills a pergola quickly in warm and coastal gardens, though it is frost tender inland. Chinese Wisteria - Wisteria sinensis is deciduous and very heavy at maturity, so it wants a structural pergola and two prunings a year; unpruned plants commonly reach the roofline, and stems that work into gutters are expensive to get out.

Self-clingers attach without hardware, and that is the catch. Creeping Fig - Ficus pumila and Boston Ivy - Parthenocissus tricuspidata Lowii climb masonry on their own, but the holdfasts bond to paint, render and mortar joints and lift the surface with them when the plant is pulled away. Removal is slow work, and older creeping fig pushes woody stems into mortar. Keep both to brick, block or bare concrete you intend to leave covered, not a rendered or painted wall you may want back. Boston Ivy is also deciduous, so the cover is bare stems through winter. Vigour cuts the other way too: English Ivy, pink jasmine and orange trumpet vine are all listed here and all are recorded as environmental weeds in parts of eastern and southern Australia, so check your state weed list before planting one near bushland or a watercourse.

Most climbers that fail were planted in the wrong 300mm. The ground hard against a fence or wall is compacted from construction, full of builders rubble, and sits in the rain shadow of the eave or the fence, so it stays dry through summer even in a wet week. Plant 400mm to 500mm out instead, in soil you have dug over and improved, and lead the stems back to the support with a stake or wire. Water at the base through the first two summers, keep mulch off the stem, and feed once new growth appears.

If you want height and cover rather than a vine specifically, compare Privacy Screening and Low Maintenance Plants. Native plantings can start at Purple Coral Pea, and Figs and Ficus covers the rest of the Ficus range. Every order ships farm-direct with flat $99 delivery across QLD, NSW, VIC, SA, ACT and WA, a $399 minimum order, and the 30-Day Healthy Plant Guarantee.

Not sure where to start? Browse the full range index, every collection and guide in one place.

New to these plants? Read our guide: Climbers for fences, pergolas and screens.