I love metal trellises that you can set up by just pushing them into the soil. They make it easy to add vertical interest to the garden with minimal fuss. I have several of them that I randomly set around the garden each year.
My favorite vine used to be morning glories like ‘Grandpa Ott’ (pictured above), but if you’ve ever grown them you know they can become annoyingly invasive. You’ll find little seedlings popping up and grabbing onto all the other plants in your garden FOR YEARS. One exception is the beautiful ‘Heavenly Blue’ which is a sterile hybrid:
Unfortunately, once the Japanese Beetle invasion took hold in this area, growing morning glories became a losing proposition. The bugs chomped the leaves and flowers into Swiss cheese, and the plants were nothing more than neon signs inviting in more and more beetles.
One climber that the beetles don’t seem to have any interest in is Asarina scandens (pictured below). Common names for this cute little vine include creeping snagdragon and—my favorite—chickabiddy.
Asarina grows 5 to 10 feet tall in violet, pink or white flowers depending on the cultivar. I’ve found that even the taller-growing cultivars are happy on a 4-foot trellis. The vines both twine and cling.
I sprout my Asarina seeds indoors about 4-6 weeks before the last frost date, but I have occasionally seen the plants for sale at garden centers. Asarina blooms all through the summer until the first frost in sun or partial shade.