What do you think?

ceecee14

Hi, I have a big rusty steel pole in my garden, it seems to be an old street light pole. Its a bit of an eyesore so I was thinking of setting a climber to cover it in flowers.. The only nice flowering climber I know is Clemitis. Would a climbitis climb that high (15ft) if I planted it in the ground, and if yes, how long would it take?

If anyone has any better tips for a fast growing, flowering climber for it I'd be delighted.

Here's pic of the pole

ceecee14

Sorry, here's the picture

pixbyjohn

Sow a nice Pyracantha because it will have green leaves all year and red or orange berries for a few monthe especially at Christmas time. The Clematis looks awful when not in flower, it is very bare.
http://www.wattersgardencenter.com/honor/victory-pyracantha/

It will cover the steel pole, you just need to tie it in periodically

kylith

Pyracantha also has giant thorns, just so you know, and imo doesn't smell very nice either. The berries are great for birds though.

There are a couple of varieties of evergreen clematis: http://www.johnstowngardencentre.ie/advsearch/index?keywords=evergreen%20clematis

Not trying to be funny or anything, but wouldn't an angle grinder be the best solution here?

drunkmonkey

Make a great start for a hops trellis, keep you in beer all winter.

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/uploads/ineo/Trellis_Illustrations.png

ceecee14

pixbyjohn wrote:

Sow a nice Pyracantha because it will have green leaves all year and red or orange berries for a few monthe especially at Christmas time. The Clematis looks awful when not in flower, it is very bare.

kylith wrote:

Pyracantha also has giant thorns, just so you know, and imo doesn't smell very nice either. The berries are great for birds though.

Cheers guys. Good thinking about the clematis looking horrible during winter. I hadn't considered that.

I like the idea of an evergreen and of course feed the birds but I'm really after something with nice flowers.

ceecee14

Deleted User wrote:

Not trying to be funny or anything, but wouldn't an angle grinder be the best solution here?

I'm renting the property so I couldn't do that as much as I'd love to.

ceecee14

kylith wrote:

Pyracantha also has giant thorns, just so you know, and imo doesn't smell very nice either. The berries are great for birds though.

kylith wrote:

There are a couple of varieties of evergreen clematis:

Thanks for the heads up.

Those evergreens look nice and have a long flowering period, I'll be at my garden centre the weekend, hopefully they have something for me

looksee

A Rambling Rector rose would be spectacular! You could in fact grow two things up it that flower at different times. I would suggest you do not use trellis, but you will need to put some sort of wire or similar for the plant to scramble up, and the pillar does look very high. Neither clematis nor rose would self-cling to a pole like that.

I would imagine if you could tie very long lengths of wire or nylon rope together then cable tie (several times) to the top of the pole. Then do a kind of maypole pattern of looping the ropes in and out of each other like wire netting. If you got a few helpers you could do it from ground level and cable tie it at the bottom too. At some stage though, you are going to have to go up to the top!

Hocus Focus

Deleted User wrote: »

Not trying to be funny or anything, but wouldn't an angle grinder be the best solution here?

It looks like it could be a breather pipe for a sewerage system.

forumuser

We have a similar issue but in our case it's an ESB pole that was placed in the garden before the edge of the site was fully cleared and was further into the lawn than expected. Would love to disguise it in someway but I imagine growing anything on it would be too dangerous. Could we erect trellis around it I wonder?