Let’s Get Weaving – Plant Supports

There’s still time to get plant supports in place, before everything gets too large, develops a mind of its own and heads off in directions that may suit it – but doesn’t add to the beauty of the garden. With this is mind, I recently attended a Staking & Supports course given by Sarah Raven, whose garden at Perch Hill could not be bettered when it comes to plant supports, the majority of which are made from natural materials. Coppiced chestnut, willow, hazel and silver birch are all used to create sturdy and decorative frameworks to keep plants upright or support them as they climb. Anyone planning to plant a cutting garden would find the course invaluable – and I now know how I can do it better next year. The most important thing I learnt is that my bundles of coppiced silver birch need to be taller if I am going to create the tall, elegant structures that we made at Perch Hill, rather than the short, dumpy ones that I’ve managed at home. I get my silver birch from the man who supplies our logs and up until now he has cut them to the length that will fit in the car – I will ask for them to be delivered in future. According to Sarah, the best suppliers provide the materials to build Point-to-Point hurdles, but you need to be living a very rural life to have them nearby.

My coppiced silver birch is too short too weave the elegant structures we made at Perch Hill – hence the short, dumpy, unwoven object in the vegetable garden The next thing that I learnt is that you need a really good depth of soil (and possibly a metal stake) to push the branches deep into the ground so that when you weave the branches together they stay in position. For a decent size support you will need about seven