The perfect climber – for the inpatient gardener, at least – is an annual one. In mere months you can immerse yourself in rampant greenery and flamboyant flower. With the scantest of forethought you can enjoy towering height and revved-up colour.
Annual climbers that were planted, even from a tiny seed in early summer, might already be transforming the mood of your patch.
Thunbergia alata, with its orange flowers, is an annual climber in cool areas of Victoria, but is invasive in New South Wales.Credit: iStock
There is the blazing red flash of scarlet runner beans, the ramble of nasturtiums and the ever-luxuriant looking Malabar spinach. A cup and saucer vine might be already three-metres high, while Hyacinth beans might be covered in violet flowers. All the spots in your garden that were unsightly at the start of summer could now be a profusion of plant life.
But then, almost as fast, these climbers will disappear. In the coldest months, they will leave no woody tracery in the way of a grape, they won’t stay green like star jasmine or keep clinging like ficus – they will just vanish from sight.
Annual climbers, unlike perennial ones, complete their life cycle within a year. But the divide between the two is not always clear-cut and not all annual climbers are, strictly speaking, annuals. Many climbers that are annual in frosty cool climates are perennial in warmer places, including their habitat. Moreover, in some places, these climbers become so vigorous they turn into weeds.
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Thunbergia alata, for example, is an annual in cool areas of Victoria but invasive in New South Wales and Queensland. The cup and saucer vine is annual in the cooler areas of Victoria, perennial in some warmer spots and weedy in parts of NSW, while purple Morning Glory is a beloved annual climber in cold parts of the Northern Hemisphere but a perennial weed across Australia.
Scarlet runner beans are another case in point. Even though they might look like they have disappeared entirely in winter, give them a mild enough climate and the plant’s tuberous roots can re-sprout annually for years. But for those gardeners who have to sow the seed each year there are still big rewards. They will have a two-metre-high vine and brilliant blooms – followed by edible pods – in less than three months.
If red flowering runner beans are not your thing, you could try Painted Lady for white and salmon flowers or Sunset Runner for pure salmon pink ones. Alternatively, you can opt for climbing beans that have especially showy (and still edible) pods – try ‘Purple King’, which has bruised purple ones or ‘Rattlesnake’ (purple-streaked ones.)
