Vines

It's summer solstice and a beautiful day -- perfect time to start my rear garden. My back yard has been rather barren. It still is! A blank 55-foot length of block wall was most beckoning of adornment. It really needed something. So I thought of vines...



I made a redwood trellis that's fastened to the wall with copper wire and deck screws. Every four feet got either a white bower, lavendar trumpet or star jasmine vine — all purchased from Home Depot. Pro gardeners have told me that they're too close together, that they'll overgrow each other. Maybe they're right. We'll see.

There was also a structural reason for doing this. The other side of the wall was eroding fast. It's a municipal easement on the other side, and they clear the ground of vegetation every year. Nothing is left to hold the soil from washing away, exposing the wall's foundation! My lack of backyard trees and shrubs didn't help. Even just two years of erosion revealed a lot. So the fastest growing plants that could hug close to the wall was needed. Thus, vines!