Romantic Garden Nooks

Romantic Garden Corners

Ornamental gardens can be made cosy with romantic corners that you can easily create using tall-growing flowers and lush climbing plants. A profusion of blooms will delight you throughout the entire gardening season. Amazing climbing plants don't have to be just unwanted "weeds" – they can be cultivated and shaped into veils around garden seating areas or along fences. You can also simply build supports, structural elements, and screens for them to climb, bringing your garden to life.

Given the vigorous growth of climbing plants, you don't need to limit yourself to natural materials when building structures. If you choose metal constructions, don't be afraid of them – the plants will soon cover them and they won't be as visible. Support structures are not complicated, but if you decide on a living screen, we have plants that will reach impressive heights to envelop your seating area.

When building supports and structures, consider the type of plants you want to grow. Wire support with many eyelets is required for Clematis and Sweet Peas (lat. Lathyrus). In contrast, Ivy and Virginia creeper species can attach themselves with adhesive pads even to roughly plastered walls. On 1 cm thick wire or rods, Knotweed and Wisteria wind well. All climbing plants, whether annual or perennial, grow quickly and densely straight upward.

Do you have a fence with wide gaps that allows people to see right through from all sides? Are you tired of passers-by looking in? Do you want it to grow over quickly and transform it into an opaque wall in a short time? Then reach for Sweet Pea seeds (lat. Lathyrus odoratus). They will provide a daily profusion of flowers. These flowers are also wonderfully fragrant.

TIP: Do you want dense foliage and flowers even in the lower parts of structures? Then we recommend sowing plant seeds horizontally to the structure and guiding them to the support from the side. Where you evenly distribute and spread them along the structure. This way you prevent the plants from being "bare" at the bottom of the structure and heavily branched and overhanging at the top edge.

Don't want to build structures or retaining walls but would still like a change in the garden and to grow some climbing annuals? Then choose planting in containers and larger pots.

You can have fun with colorful compositions and arrangements of plants, for example according to flowers. Container plantings work best during the summer months. Choose a container with a wider rim. Select a sunny spot in your garden. Carry the container to its intended location and then place a drainage layer at the bottom - it can be stones that will weigh down the container to prevent it from tipping over. Then add substrate and plant your chosen plants. For example, Morning Glory (lat. Ipomea), Cypress Vine (lat. Quamoclit) or other plants from the bindweed family look beautiful in containers. The shoots of annuals climb upward quickly.

However, dense and large masses of flowers and climbing plants are not always necessary. On small gardens, large-scale elements often get in the way. Not everyone likes walls higher than the average human height either. In a small garden, consider in advance the size of areas with climbing plants, or the placement of pots with tall and vigorously growing plants. Over time, they may limit your further creative work and projects in the garden.

When selecting plant species to sow, consider types of plants that have vigorous and rapid growth and abundant flowers. You don't always have to choose between plants. In the first years after planting, for example, Box Elder and Buddleia davidii create sufficiently tall and lush bushes.

Ten Fastest Growing Climbing Plants:

Japanese Hop - lat. Humulus scandens - creates dense green growth over the garden, thrives well and looks beautiful on arched bridges and arbors. Hop is an annual plant. In shade it climbs up to 6m high. In autumn, however, it's advisable to cut the shoots low above the ground. The overwintering plant quickly produces new shoots in spring.

Clematis - lat. Clematis - climbs up to 3 - 8 meters depending on the species you choose

Common Morning Glory - lat. Ipomea purpurea - annual plant that prefers a sunny location. It has abundant flowers on shoots up to max. 3m long.

Russian Vine or Knotweed - lat. Fallopia or Polygonum - is characterized by extremely rapid shoot growth. During the growing season they climb up to 8-15 m high.

Scarlet Runner Bean - lat. Phaseolus coccineus - grows up to 4m high. It is an annual plant with abundant red flowers.

Honeysuckle - lat. Lonicera - climbs up to 6m high. It flowers abundantly from spring to autumn.

Nasturtium - lat. Tropaeolum majus - very quickly reaches heights of two meters.

Quamoclit lobata - annual plant, reaching lengths up to 6m. The flowers are yellow, narrow, tubular. The buds of this plant are colored scarlet.

Tall annuals frame garden corners throughout the summer. Their height helps create privacy for seating areas and prevents uninvited onlookers from peering into your private space. Among taller plants, choose for example Cosmos (lat. Cosmos bipinnatus) and Spider Flower (lat. Cleome spinosa). Both complement each other very well. They are approximately the same height and have similar growing requirements. Their flower colours harmonize beautifully together.

Tall annuals and perennials also provide protection and shade for lower plants, or plants you want to keep in their place later. During hot summers, they provide shade for, for example, newly sprouting bamboo or shrub roses. Suitable perennials include Joe Pye Weed (lat. Eupatorium) and Tree Mallow (lat. Lavatera olbia), which delight their surroundings with the beauty of colourful flowers. For sowing in nutrient-rich soil, Chinese Silver Grass (lat. Miscanthus sinensis) is an ideal plant, which with the gentle rustling of its stems pleasantly softens disturbing noise, for example from a nearby road or from noisier neighbours. Suitable companion annuals for these perennials include Mexican Sunflower (lat. Tithonia) and Amaranth (lat. Amaranthus). These plants together create a sturdy thicket full of flowers.

Share photos of your gardens with friends!

Author: Hana Michalíková