Staking And Tying

This week I continue on the journey through the land of defying gravity in the garden. In any number of circumstances in the flower garden and vegetable garden we come upon plants that want to grow toward the sky but can’t, or plants that want to travel horizontally while we need them to go vertically.

For all of these situations there is a stake and a tie or anchor that works, and in many cases they can be used and never be noticed. They can be fully integrated or they can become part of the garden structure.I keep a whole arsenal of staking material in my barn. From metal to wood, they are sorted by height and diameter and in some cases by color as well. Early in the season you might catch me with my four-wheel garden cart winding my way through the property with my collection of stakes and ties. Often there’s a dilemma, though—is this particular plant tall enough to stake, or will the stake be too tall and stick out, or if it doesn’t get staked will this be the week that a gust of wind or a thunderstorm will snap the stem of a beloved lily or delphinium?

This is where my fantasy stake would come in so handy.

My fantasy garden stake would be made of stainless steel, clad in a coating that perfectly matched or blended with stem and twig colors, and would be telescoping. Have you ever tried to stake an Asiatic lily that grows to 8 feet tall? It can grow a foot a week, and this means giving it a new stake and re-tying it every two to three weeks. A telescoping stake would need to be extended higher just every week or so until the lily stopped growing.

Easier said than done, though. One thing that some green-thumbed entrepreneur might think about is the kind of telescoping extension handle that you can find in hardware stores. They’re about an inch in diameter, lightweight and extend to well over 8 feet. The problem is that they are usually white or yellow, too thick and don’t have points on the end that could be pushed into the soil.

Opportunity’s knocking, though: I was told by my hardware maven that such a stake would be too expensive to make. Well, I’d pay five or six bucks (maybe more) for a telescoping garden stake that was the right color, lasted for years and grew with the plants.

However, as I mentioned, the stake or support is only part of the solution. Attaching the plant to the stake is the real challenge, since if it’s done wrong the stake becomes useless and the attaching material or methods can actually be detrimental to the plant and little more than a death noose. Some plants don’t need to be attached. I have lilies that grow to over 8 feet, and I stake them just to keep the heavy flowers from splitting the stems in rainstorms. Since the plants grow toward the sun I simply—and discreetly—run a green metal stake at a slight diagonal across and in front of the stem—and it’s supported all summer with no need for attachment.

Clematis and sweet peas also will attach themselves to proper staking, though they may need some initial encouragement to twine. Particular attention needs to be paid to clematis stems out here, because the wind can easily break the stems, resulting in no flowering and possible damage to the plant.

So what do you do with other plants? There are lots of choices, from garden twine to jute to raffia on the natural side and twist ties, coated plastics, nylon ties, foam ties and other products that you’ll find in catalogs and in garden centers. For stone walls or the sides of buildings, there are tabs with twist-able ends that can be pushed into stone walls and tabs with wires that can be glued to wood or stucco exterior walls.

When staking, one very important consideration is to always try to link the plant to the stake without directly tying one straight to the other. For example, if you have an indeterminate tomato plant that will grow 6 feet tall and you put in a 6-foot stake to keep it upright, you might simply take a tie and encircle the stem and stake in one loop, keeping the stem tight to the stake.

This may work for a while, but as the stem ages and thickens, the tie may strangle it, or a strong wind may simply snap the stem where the tie is. Instead, try to use the figure eight method when tying just about any plant to a stake. One-half of the eight gets attached to the stake and the other half goes around the plant. The cross-over loop part of the “8” attaches one side to the stake and the other to the plant. This method not only gives support, but it also leaves enough room around the stem for some flexibility in growing and it allows for some give and flexing in the wind.

When you need to support plants like perennial geraniums or masses of echinaceas, the twigs of beech trees cut in winter are really great. The forked and branched twigs can be small or large, and when pushed up against the growing plants or inserted inside the bed, pushing the plants upright, the twigging becomes virtually invisible. You may know the twigs are there, but visitors will never see them when they are correctly installed.

There is one product that I’ve relied on more and more over the years called the stretch tie. This is a synthetic material that is flat, comes in two widths, stretches and comes in rolls like tape. The material has the ability to stretch a bit while you’re using it or as the plant grows, so it can accommodate both plant movement and growth. It was one of my favorite materials for tying roses, but it’s also great in the flower and vegetable garden.

Alas, I’ve only found it in green, but it does blend well and if you’re miserly the cut strips can be used year after year if you untie them at the end of the season and save them for next year.

Don’t forget that there are also various anchoring systems for holding vines and viney shrubs. This can be a problem on masonry walls, stucco walls and also on rock walls. Here you can use metal anchors that have lead “ties” attached to them. The anchor is driven into the wall and the lead tie is wrapped around the stem. This works with plants such as climbing hydrangeas that need some initial encouragement before they self-attach, and it also works well with climbing roses. If you don’t want to drive a small spike into your wall, there is also a glue-on type.

When supporting your plants be inventive, try to use natural materials that will blend in with the color and structural themes, and anticipate the growing needs of the plant. A 2-foot stake will do little for a delphinium that will grow to 6 feet, and by the same token an 8-foot trellis will look pretty ridiculous for a bush cucumber. Plants can be re-staked as the season progresses, but be careful where the new stake goes, as there’s growing going on under the soil as well as above. Keep growing.