Actinidia
The owners of small gardens need to utilise every scrap of space and they, therefore, must be more selective in their choice of plants. Climbers and wall plants will provide the answer to many problems for they will add both space and height to congested sites and will bring colour to every available wall. However, enthusiasm should be tempered with discreet understanding for there are climbers which love to be baked into brilliance of flower by hot sun, whereas others must be soothed by moist shade.
I always use a soft string which will not chafe even the most tender bark and, which is perhaps more important, it will rot after a year or two. When indestructible material is used I grow careless about the annual inspection to ensure the stem is not being constricted by the tie. All wall plants must be looked over at least twice a year to make certain the stems are not being chafed or strangled by the supporting media.
Before attempting any planting examine the soil at the foot of an average house wall. Usually it consists of builders’ leavings, sub-soil, pot crocks and other aridities, possibly enriched by a few tea leaves. All this must be excavated and replaced with soil from a fertile part of the garden.
Actinidia chinensis will riot over an acre of wall in an undignified scramble. The large leaves, 6 to 8 in. across, and fragrant flowers are recompense enough if space can be provided, but really only a castle offers sufficient wall space and even then, should the drawbridge be left down, it could prove a liability for once inside it would take over the uppermost turret. A. kolomikta is a shrub of feminine complexity. It is incapable of deciding on a suitable leaf colour, the lower half remaining green while the upper half turns white and pink.
Cote d’Azur is a form of the above with leathery hard foliage and azure-blue flowers. Probably the violet-blue blooms of C. x jackmanii are the best known of all the genus, appearing as they do during the holiday months of July to September and this hybrid has given rise to many large-flowered garden varieties.
Some gardeners have an instinct for putting flowers in just the right association with one another and I am fortunate in that for 15 years just such an artist gave me endless help at Harlow Car. C. macropetala, an early-summer-flowering species with large violet semi-double blooms, was her favourite and it was always grown through a wisteria which flowered at the same time. C. montana is the robust, independent, ‘go out and conquer the world’ member of the clan, growing well in any position. I have seen it on walls, potting sheds, thatched cottages, Scots Pine, apple trees, even a ruined church. I grow the white form granditiora , the rose-purpleflowered, bronze-leaved rubens and the pearl- pink, sweetly fragrant Elizabeth. All flower in May and some years a small second crop appears rather apologetically in August.
