Size matters

Grappling with a large wisteria allows Toby to consider the importance of starting small for success with climbers

- TOBY BUCKLAND

WHEN my friend Jack – a man with more cash than sense – asked for help planting a wisteria, I thought he was making heavy weather out of it. How hard can it be to dig a hole and (delicately, of course) bung the plant in? The answer, it turns out, is ‘very hard indeed’. Jack’s ‘beanstalk’ was no ordinary climber, but a mature 15-footer in a container the size of a roll-top bath.

Anyone who says that size doesn’t matter hasn’t carried a behemoth wisteria up a flight of garden steps or excavated a huge planting pit to accommodate its rootball. I kid you not, the stony sides of the hole looked like the Grand Canyon.

Coping with house foundations and rubble-filled earth goes with the territory for climbers planted against a wall. But it still pays to heed the golden rule: the rougher the soil, the smaller the climber should be.