A Landscape Designers Guide To Plant Supports For Spring

With Spring approaching now is the time to set up your gardens structure ready for the growing season.

Certain herbaceous plants such as Hydrangea, Peonies or Agapanthus can benefit from a support structure to keep them in check and prevent the stems from collapsing due to large flower heads. Equally our climbing roses need a structure to be trained around to allow them to reach their flowering potential, this needs to be done early on with young stems whilst they are still supple and bendy enough to move.

By putting these structures in place early on in the year, the plants are able to grow through them naturally, rather than the fussy and sometimes impossible job of attempting to thread bits of plant into a frame post growth.

Herbaceous 2 Ring Plant Supports from Muntons

We love the corTen steel supports from Muntons, the steel structures weather outside, developing a beautiful pattern that does not deteriorate over time. These 2 ring supports that come in a variety of sizes are perfect for holding up those Peony heads, or taming an unruly clump of tall perennials such as Iris or Agapanthus. They also supply a larger, 3 ring version which is perfect for those large mop headed Hydrangea varieties such as ‘Annabelle’ or ‘Limelight’.

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1 Ring Herbaceous Plant Support With Grid From Muntons

This is a handy support for tall perennials such as Dahlia’s, if you get them set up as soon as the Dahlias emerge it gives them a chance to grow up through the mesh. This helps to counteract the issue many Dahlia varieties have with collapsing due to long stems and large flower heads.

Rose And Clematis Obelisk From Muntons

These traditionally designed garden obelisks are great choices for training your climbing roses or herbaceous climbers such as Clematis or Sweet Peas. With various styles available from square to round, open topped, caged or with a pyramid style top, there are endless possibilities for your vertical garden this spring.

Horn Obelisk – Made by Moore

If you are looking for something contemporary and unique then these Horn Obelisks from Made by Moore are for you. Recently re-branded from ‘Moore Designs’ this East Sussex based company hand make all the supports and sculptures in their workshop, with stunning results. Available in galvanised or rusted steel they not only make the perfect support for your climbing plants but a beautiful piece of garden sculpture in its own right. They are can be bought as a pair to create a garden archway which provides an organic curved structure for people to walkthrough and grow plants over.

Garden Sphere – Made by Moore

These garden sculptures again provide an eye-catching element to the garden, both contemporary and unusual. Although they are primarily intended as a sculptural piece, we have experimented growing herbaceous plants through them or climbers such as ivy and it has been most effective. If you liked these spheres but were looking for something with a little more height why not check out their ‘Family ‘Figures’, where the spheres have been fixed onto a taller obelisk for maximum effect.