The trumpet creeper, or campsis, has long
climbing stems that will attach to anything from pillar to post.
"Some veg boys also use nicotine sprays when slugs are
climbing stems, which drives them away rather than kill them.
Not quite so pretty is Dioscorea Elephantipes or elephant's foot, a real curiosity of a plant, its deadlooking domed woody trunk puts up long,
climbing stems with yellow flowers in autumn, interesting and a charming oddball of a plant.
Grow them in a sunny spot and train the
climbing stems on netting strung between two stakes to make picking easier.
Species of Didymaea are characterized by their procumbent or
climbing stems, opposite leaves with ovate, oblong-ovate, lanceolate, elliptic, or rarely linear blades, small, shallowly to deeply bilobed or geminate interpetiolar stipules, axillary inflorescences with small, bisexual homostylous flowers with calyces reduced or absent, small, white to purple corollas with short tubes and 4-valvate lobes, 4 stamens with dorsifixed anthers, 2-locular ovaries with one axillary ovule per locule, and black, drupaceous fruits that are dimidiate and deeply bisulcate or sometimes subglobose.
In my own garden, I have a specimen bush ivy that was propagated from the flowering growth and this prevents the plant from producing
climbing stems, putting all its energy into the development of flowers in the autumn and ivy fruits in spring, which are poisonous to us but are adored by our resident blackbirds.
They will need support the following year when lateral shoots appear on the
climbing stems. The shoots flower and produce fruits during the summer then die off in winter.
In a couple of months the
climbing stems will reach up to 10ft and be covered in yellow blooms that look like little birds.
TIP: Prune after flowering to prevent the
climbing stems from shading the lower parts of the plant.
WEAVE the
climbing stems of sweet peas onto their wigwam supports and loosely tie in place with string.