Adding height to your plot!

[bario1]

Hi all,

How do you add vertical interest to your plot/veg patch?

I want my plot to be an Aladdin's Cave, an adventure up, down, under, and around the corner...

So, who's managed to add verticality to their plot, be it through permanent structures, landscaping, shrubs/trees or simply by growing crops up frames and wigwams? I need inspiration, so post pics if you have them!

[Cadalot]

Runner Bean Frames






This replaced the original

[bario1]

Fantastic, Cadalot - you've really transformed that wall! Nice to have a vertical feature like that to work with... looks like a proper suntrap too.

[veggiechicken]

You need some jungle! No straight lines, meandering paths with the views broken by fruit bushes/trees or tall plants like corn and of course, kale Obelisks, wigwams, arches, tunnels to walk through with vines, squash, beans growing up and over.
I love an adventure in the garden

[bario1]

Exactly VC, these are the things I'm thinking about, but also steps, hillocks, a 'sunken' pond area...

I want it to have some form in the winter too, so I'm thinking about some bold structures... I like this simple archway made of scaffold planks with hanging baskets:



I've got some tall kales already (thanks!)... I know nothing about shrubs though, what make good sculptural bushes but won't grow enormous?

[ESBkevin]

I lean two pallets together in /\ form and try to get courgets to grow over them rather than sprawl.
I have made T crosses in the rows of raspberries and run wire along to contain the canes. I have an L shape of espallier fruit trees with wires running along both the angles, there are a plumb, pear, three apple, cherry, Apricot and peach tree trimmed to no more than 6 feet.
I made some strawberry planters from pallets that are troughs on X braces about 4ft high. You can plant more stuff underneath and it saves too much bending but you must water a lot!
I made some planter boxes about 30" long and 12" Sq (pallets again) and they each contain 4 box bushes. There are three and I can move them about to create screens or borders wherever I want.
Raised beds with hoops give some height! Sweetcorn, runner beans, tomatos etc give form. I grow my Toms courdon style tied to some metal poles tied like a swing frame but wider.

[Jungle Jane]

Hi You could add swing frames for vines & then move them each year,having two or four would look attractive in a design,then you could add a wire & join them at the tops & have beans growing along the wires or something,they don't move in the wind unlike bamboo sticks. This photo from Aug 11th shows how much space there is,the tomatoes were growing along the top of the frame with tomatoes hanging over the top,but they got blight the other day,so those tomato plants have been removed,it looks like the second photo today,the third photo is a close up of a cucumber growing halfway along the side using a bamboo stick tied to the frame with string for verticality

[veggiechicken]

A few snaps of how I create living arches!!


Made a couple of "arches" from black pipes on cane legs and pulled a couple of plum tree branches down to them & tied them together.



I've been interweaving the branches on ?6 apple trees for a couple of years to make a sort of canopy. Its hard to take a clear photo as its such a tangle of branches, leaves and lot of apples. I'm sure the festooning" effect has improved cropping and I can reach all the apples now.

I also have a few moving statues on tree trunk plinths!

[bario1]

Brilliant VC, I never thought of using dogs to add height!

[veggiechicken]

Great Danes would be better, they don't need the stumps!

[Greenleaves]

Miniature breeds would look tall to you VC......lots of love Grownleaves

[veggiechicken]

You say such nice things to me, thank you, Grownsleeves x

[Cadalot]

Fantastic, Cadalot - you've really transformed that wall! Nice to have a vertical feature like that to work with... looks like a proper suntrap too.

Actually it takes some time for the sun to get up to the shed end in the morning, which actually I like because in the height of summer I can work the lower end and move up to keep out of the sun when I need a break.



I had grapes behind the greenhouse, but they are full of pips and not eating and the girls want seedless so the vine is coming out and I'm replacing them with raspberries.

My other plot at Spencer Road has no shade from the sun unless I sit behind my shed in the access road.

[Newt]

I had great success a couple of years ago adding height interest to my tiny walled garden, but installing a pallet-based herb wall. I plan to do something similar along the north edge of my allotment plot now to replace the rubbished fence with a low wall of pallets.

They're fairly easy to do. Sew some robust fabric - the sort you'd lay over a bed and plant through - into a little square-sided shape the same dimensions as the pallet. Insert in the pallet, folding the top edge over and stapling it down, then fill with good soil. Grab a couple lengths of hosepipe, block up one end and poke/drill small holes along the length, and push these down into the soil in the pallet so you can easily water it.

Then just stand it upright, and poke holes in the fabric where it's visible in gaps between the pallet slats to plant herbs and small things like strawberries.

[Baldy]

^^^ nice swan Newt
I've got a bit of a thing going on ... bit messy but this pergoda-ish thing 'tixt shed and wooden frame had grapes and fat babies a-dangling down this year - I'm thinking of rebuilding it with long pallet wood and then putting some corrugated clear plastic sheet on it to enhance the 'look' and provide me with near Mediterranean micro climate or somesuch