Grow your Own Plant Support

A cheap and effective alternative to a bamboo cane plant support can be stems of trees and shrubs from your garden. Not only can it be a fun alternative, but it is also more economical and eliminates the carbon footprint of importing bamboo canes. Also the stock plants in which the stems are harvested create supplementary habitats for wildlife.

Best Plant Supports

Hazel (Corylus avellana) is well suited for this purpose. A coppicing hazel can live up to 100 years or more. IT is frost hardy, suited to withstand soils with a variety of PH, and is tolerant of shade and exposure. Furthermore, it is pliable and has durable stems that can be used as plant supports.

The stems of other ornamental woody plants are also good candidates. If you wish to support smaller plants such as Dianthus and Papaver, watershoots produced on apple and pear trees can be great. When watershoots are pruned out in winter, these stems are ideal for making structures to support low-growing legumes. Similarly, birch branches make excellent pea-sticks. Dogwood (Cornus) produces stems that are easily woven as willow for a range of projects.

Why grow your own Plant Supports?

Growing your own plant supports can be worthwhile for many reasons. Not only can it be a support to other plants, they can also provide colour, contrast and seasonal interest to any garden.

In this day and age we are always looking at ways to save ourselves money and it is no different when we are spending money to improve our gardens. Growing your own plant supports could help. If you need any more information on plant support then please contact us.