A few months ago my dad found a 36" spiral topiary frame at the local recycling center. He's a welder by trade so he is always checking out the scrap metal bin for odds and ends of things to make yard ornaments out of.
I put it to extremely good use by wrapping my H. aff fraterna around it. Since then i've been looking for those frames online. I've found a few sources for them but they are very expensive.
So a couples of days ago I was in lowes and a little light came on. I thought why not try and make some myself using copper tubing? So I bought a 20ft length of copper wire for which I had plans of cutting into 3 seperate 6ft pieces. Then begin from the center and pull it upwards to form a spiral support for my vines.
Well the copper tuning is still sitting on the shelf in the gh and i'm glad I didnt cut it yet!! I decided to try one more search online and it's a good thing I did because I found exactly what i had been looking for all along!
I'll attach a link to the site. When the home page opens click on garden supports, then click on plant supports and when that opens scroll down to you see an item called spiraclimb vine supports.
I found them at first by accident. I also see that Logees GH sells them at the price of $9 for one. This site offers them for $18 for a set of 3. I bought several sets and they should be here in a few days.
http://www.gardentalk.com/?page=thumb-support.htm
dmichael
This message was edited Nov 12, 2006 4:06 PM
supports for hoyas
Michael,
I have used those supports for my hoyas...i got them at Lee Valley...they work great but make sure you use them in a heavy pot like clay or ceramic.. so they are sturdy enough to support with the weight of plant or else they will get top heavy after you keep winding the vines up and down the support....they do show off the hoyas quite nicely though....works great for any vining one especially i think....
Sandy
Thanks for that Michael, I like the plant pillars on that site. the two I'm trying are posted on my blog.
http://hoyagarden.blogspot.com/
Roy
it took me forever to find a small trellis for hoyas. I happened to stumble upon one at a local snooty garden center. the day happened to be very close to my birthday, so I splurged and bought the 2' trellis. actually, I really really splurged and bought a big crimson queen WITH a very large penducle....all my plants come via HD/Lowes, so I get excited when I find penducles. here's a picture (bad bad picture) of what it looked like. I bought a wire wall hoop to display it.
sadly to say, this hoya did NOT like the monkey bars so rudely shoved into its pot and died. since I didn't want to murder any of my plants, I planted it with vining jasmines instead. I'll take a picture of the trellis in its current glory tomorrow for you all.
I get the plant spirals from Lee Valley as well, and pay $6 CAN for them (about US$5.60). I also pick up small trellises whenever I see them cheap at any garden centre. I have heart shaped ones that are a little too cutesy for me so I can't wait for the leaves to fill them up (LOL). I picked some up at my local garden centre on the weekend that are light, black wrought iron, flat, smaller at the bottom than the top, about 30" high. For some plants, I have bamboo hoops and just plain bamboo poles. Diversity, cheapskate is my name....
Christine
I can never find plant supports, even in the local garden centre that sells a few hoyas! I have bought a couple of nice ones from Asda (my version of Wallmart) but I'd rather not put all my hoyas on the same support... zzzzzzz
So, in the end, I got a load of heavy duty garden wire and wrapped it round itself to make a shape... the variegata pictured here is very happily twining its way around this!
http://www.spiraclimb.co.uk/prices.html
Hills, this is the original site that I found for the spiraclimb supports. It's in the UK. Give them a try and maybe you can find something of use to you for your hoyas.
dmichael
Hey thanks for that! I may need that very soon, seeing as my multiflora is off... every day I look at it, and it's grown a bit more :|
H. multiflora is not really one I would put on a spiral type of trellis. One needs a "winding" or vining type to go all the way up the spiral. Multiflora tends to get more like a bush.
Marcy