Page 33 - Garden News

NICK BAILEY

The inspirational

GARDENER

Award-winning designer, TV broadcaster and best-selling author
Lesley Cook
Headshots
Wire up

your walls

This simple method
will last a lifetime

limbing plants unquestionably make
a huge impact in the garden but
C without the right support they can
turn into tumbling torrents of tangled stems.
All too often when I’ve taken on a new garden
I find beautiful plants bereft of the space or
support they need. This regularly leads to the
‘disembowelled mattress’ look, as the late Wire supports help you
great plantsman Christopher Lloyd once to create a beautiful
climber display
described top-heavy clematis as having! Photos: GAP
Ensuring a well-fanned out plant, which is
clothed to the ground with both foliage and
flowers, calls for correct pruning, but just as Step 1 Identify the wall you want to Step 4 Slot the rawl bolts into the holes
importantly the correct structures for them add wire plant supports to and ensure there and tighten them by inserting a skinny
to grow up. I’ve tried and tested a few are no services such as electricity buried in screwdriver through the eye and tightening
approaches over the years and the one I the bricks. until they’re solid and the eye of the rawl
return to time and again is simple and only bolt is vertical. Next, cut your straining
requires straining wire, expanding rawl bolts Step 2 Decide on whether to opt wire to around 20cm (8in) longer than the
(with an eye) and marine eye bolts. They’re for vertical or horizontal wiring. The wall width you’re wiring.
all available from www.screwfix.com and horizontal approach works for most
other hardware suppliers. There are many climbers but some true twining species, Step 5 Insert the marine eye bolts into
styles and looks which can be achieved using such as thunbergia, appreciate vertical the rawl bolt eyes, then bend the cut
this method but the basic approach is this: wires to climb up. straining wire on one end to make a hook.
Slot this through the marine eye bolt on
Step 3 Using a spirit level, mark two one side of the wall and wrap the wire
vertical lines in chalk or pencil at the around itself to make it secure. Fully loosen
extremities of the area you intend to the opposing marine eye bolt and attach
wire, extending the lines to the height the wire. Now comes the clever-ish bit!
you’re aiming for. Then measure up Using a spanner, tighten the marine eye
from the lowest course of bricks, marking bolts at both sides of the wiring. This now
the chalk vertical line at 20cm (8in) provides you with very tensioned wire
Use pliers to bend intervals. Drill holes at these intervals which can be tightened in future should
and secure your wire using a masonry bit the same size and the plant stretch it out. The method is
through the eyes
depth as your expanding rawl bolts. simple, sustainable and will last a lifetime.

Useful tips

O If you’re wiring an pa erns. Get creative with O Straining wire can be quite
expansive width of wall your wiring so it looks good springy so take care when
aim for horizontal rows of with or without plants on it! cu ing it.
supporting rawl bolts at O Create a fan-shaped O Minor kinks and bends in
1.5m (5ft) intervals across support by using a single straining wire can be
the wall. rawl bolt at the bo om of removed by tightening the
O Once the rawl bolts are the wall which has a series marine eye bolts.
installed in a grid pa ern of straining wires a ached O Use soft twine to tie This cobaea is
it’s possible to create to it stretching out into a climbers on to the strained being planted on a
fan-shaped support
numerous, a ractive wiring fan shape. wire support system.

Subscribe and get 4 issues for just £1! Go to www.greatmagazines.co.uk/gn January 27 2018 /Garden News33