In the Garden : Giving Sensitive Plants a Supportive Home
As alstroemerias and asters topple, it becomes painfully obvious at this time of year that some flowers need support. Sadly, they often fall just when they have their biggest or best blooms. Late-summer watering often flattens already top-heavy plants, as droplets weigh them down.
We gardeners run around with plant ties and bamboo stakes trying to prop them up, but like tired old fighters, flowers are down for the count once they fall this late in the season.
What we should have done was provide some support back in spring, so flowers would still be standing tall and proud.
The trick, then, is to look at the garden now, observe which plant is leaning on its neighbors or which is lying flat on its face, and make notes for next spring.
And maybe stock up on some of those new, sophisticated plant supports coming our way from England or Europe.
Visit gardens in England in spring, say around Chelsea Flower Show time in May, and you will see all the underpinnings that hold up those glorious perennial borders that bloom in summer. Practically every emerging clump of green has some kind of hoop, grid, stake or other support near or over it.
It’s a bit like seeing a Victorian lady’s undergarments, with all the hoops and stays. I nearly blushed the first time I saw the big border at Wisley Gardens in spring, so exposed were these trappings before the foliage and flowers hid them all.
Here in Southern California, the closer to the coast you live, the more likely plants will need propping up, because the sun is less intense and days are often overcast. The less sun, the less strong plant stems are, and they may actually lean for the light.
“Any shade at all and things really get floppy,” said fellow gardener Susan Rudnicki. Her lovely perennial garden was seen by some 350 people on this year’s Manhattan Beach spring garden tour. She must prop up many plants because there is a fair amount of shade in her garden, so she has already discovered many of the new plant supports.
These supports are primarily for perennial and annual plants that have a tendency to lean because their flowers are so large, or there are so many. The bigger the flowers, the harder the fall.
Ideally, plant supports should be in place when plants are quite young, or just beginning to make the new season’s growth. Then the plants can grow up through the supports and new growth will hide them.
“Doing it early in the season is important,” said Rudnicki. “Wait too long to stand things up and it’s going to look real contrived.”
Some supports can’t be used at any other time. Circular wire tomato cages are an example. Most are way too small to support tomatoes but are great stuck in the ground over plants like asters or alstroemerias that you know are going to lean and fall over.
(You can use them later in the season if you cut them in half and use as semicircular supports.)
To keep carnation flower stems from falling over, growers raise them under wire grids so the flower spikes are supported. There are grids you can place over known offenders such as tall yarrows, penstemon or asters. Or the steely blue Eryngium, or sea holly, which, despite the stiffness of its painfully sharp leaves and stems, still leans.
Grids are usually supported by stakes, and one kind that comes from Gardeners Supply in Vermont ([800] 955-3370; https://www.gardeners.com) is made of lightweight green plastic that simply snaps onto regular bamboo stakes.
Most plant supports are green in color for minimal visibility. Even some tomato cages are green, and the most common plant support of all are the green-dyed bamboo stakes most gardeners buy by the gross.
Other supports are often circular; most work best when put over young plants that have yet to grow or bloom. Gardeners Supply does carry one called a “gathering ring,” where the circle can be unhooked so stems can be put inside.
A favorite support is the linked L-shaped stakes that hook together to make enclosures or long rows. They are attached end to end, and Rudnicki buys 50 at a time from suppliers such as A.M. Leonard ([800] 543-8955; https://www.amleo.com).
Still another kind has zigzags to keep plants from sliding sideways on the supporting bars.
Fancy plant supports are beginning to show up at retail nurseries, such as Roger’s Gardens in Newport Beach or Hortus in Pasadena, which carry the Dutch Peacock supports, a system of grids, circles and stakes with rounded tops (to keep you from getting poked in the eye) that combine into a variety of configurations. There are even scalloped supports that prevent flowers from spilling onto lawns.
Expensive European supports are not the only option. Remember that even the English use brush for support. It may not be as versatile, but Rudnicki likes to use apricot prunings and garden bamboo with its side branches. Simply place “brush supports” on or next to suspect plants so they can lean on it as they grow.
The important thing is not so much what you use but when you use it. To prevent late-season lay-downs, make a note now to provide some props in spring. Your plants will thank you for that support.
In the Garden is published Thursdays. Write to Robert Smaus, SoCal Living, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053; fax to (213) 237-4712; or e-mail robert.smaus@latimes.com.
