Bower Vine Pandorea jasminoides Alba

Alba is the white flowered bower vine, a fast evergreen twiner with glossy divided leaves and flared trumpet flowers carried in loose clusters through the warm months. It lacks the deep pink throat of the common form, which is why it turns up in pale planting schemes and against red brick where pink jars. Because the trumpets face outward and down, the vine is at its most useful overhead, on a pergola, an arch or a carport frame where you stand underneath and look up into the flowers.

Warmth, wire and the frost question

This is a twiner. It has no adhesive pads and no aerial roots, so it cannot climb bare render or brickwork, and it will simply pile up at the base if you give it nothing to wind around. That is a point in its favour, because self clinging climbers pull mortar and lift paint. Run stainless wire, weldmesh or lattice held off the wall on spacers, and tie the leading stems in while they are still soft and green. Soil should be free draining and enriched with compost, watered through the first summer, and the position anywhere from part shade to full sun with shelter from hot dry wind. Keep it clear of small shrubs, which it will smother rather than climb. The failure mode is cold. Young plants are cut hard by frost, and in Canberra, Ballarat, Orange or an inland frost hollow an unprotected first winter can kill one outright. In those districts grow it against a warm north facing wall, or keep it potted under eaves until the stems have thickened and hardened off.

Alba against Bower of Beauty

The straight choice is between this and Bower of Beauty, the pink selection with a rose to crimson marked throat. Habit, vigour and culture are near enough identical, so the decision is colour and setting. Alba reads clean and quiet against warm brick, terracotta and rendered walls, and it holds up at dusk in a courtyard when pink has gone grey. Bower of Beauty carries further across a garden and reads better against dark timber or green hedging. If it is scent you are after rather than flower size, neither pandorea competes with star jasmine, which flowers over a much shorter window but perfumes a whole courtyard while it does. Take Alba where the flowers will be seen close up and from underneath.

Cutting Alba back and feeding for flowers

Prune in early spring before growth moves, cutting the whole plant back to shape and taking two or three of the oldest stems right down low to force new shoots from the base. Tidy again lightly after the main flowering flush if it is spilling off its support, and untangle any stems that have wound over each other. Feed at pruning with a complete slow release fertiliser and keep nitrogen modest, since a heavily fed plant makes leaf at the expense of trumpets. Water deeply through the flowering months and mulch to keep the roots cool. See what else suits a fence line in privacy screening.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 3 sizes, from 140mm up to 300mm, priced from $16.95 to $119.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. These are younger plants, priced for planting in quantity, and they establish quickly once in the ground. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to fast growing screening plants.