Why can’t our trellis look like this?
What is the name of the trellis plant shown in the above photo? Not only is it gorgeous, it’s doing exactly what you would want—covering the trellis with no apparent extra effort by the homeowners. Their home is on Phinney Bay Drive, a main route into Bremerton, so almost every day I’m reminded how much better their trellis looks than ours.
Several years ago I built a trellis at the vacation place K and I own on Treasure Island. In a 2010 post titled What Is the Plural of Clematis?, I wrote about the plants we chose for it. As the photo below shows, except for the wisteria on the far left (look hard to see it), the plants haven’t grown. Despite a reasonable standard of care (fertilizer, water, keeping pests away) and plenty of wishin’ and hopin’, they have been total losers. It’s hard to tell if most of them are even alive.
So am I envious of my Phinney Bay neighbors with their la-di-da trellis that catches the attention of passing motorists? Hell yes. I would replace every plant we have—even the wisteria—if I only knew what they planted.
OK, I don’t have a green thumb. I have one house plant—a cactus—and it’s probably mistreated if that’s even possible. But I did try hard with the trellis plants. Honest. When they showed the slightest inclination of upward mobility, I offered encouragement by carefully securing the tender shoots to the trellis posts. A lot of thanks I got. You can see the results.
You know what? I’m going to name names. Don’t expect anything from one of these nonperformers unless you are a plant wizard like local gurus Ed Hume and Cisco Morris. I know they are hard to see, but from left to right there are five trellis plants in the photo: wisteria, jasmine, Clematis montana, honeysuckle, and Clematis alpina. Take my word for it.
I think three+ years is enough of a chance for plants to show what they can do. If I were assigning letter grades, the wisteria would get a D+ and the other four would flunk. That’s right, they would be kicked out of gardening school straight into the compost bin.
I would make good on that threat in a heartbeat if I find out what’s growing on the Phinney Bay trellis.
Wisteria and four losers
Mud Bay Blog 
I recommend Passiflora incarnata. We had so much of that growing all over our house in Nagasaki that …. (more later)
Sorry. Had to go out for a birthday dinner. Anyway, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora_incarnata & see what it looks like. I think if you ask for Passion Flower at your local flower shop, you can pick up one of these fast-growing vines. Believe me, it will cover your trellis and anything else in reach in short order.