It's National Beanpole Week
You can use all sorts of materials for supporting your plants, but coppiced hazel is a natural-looking and environmentally-friendly choice, as well as supporting local woodland industries. Hazel is a British native tree which can be regularly coppiced (cut to the base) each spring, its long ramrod straight stems harvested for everything from beanpoles to fencing.
They're ideal for constructing sturdy support frames for everything from clematis to climbing beans as they have just the right number of knobbly bits for stems to cling to. Just tie the sticks together at the top into a wigwam, or construct sturdy A-frame supports along a row.
The twiggy top growth makes great peasticks; poke them among your perennials to provide unobtrusive support which looks so natural it just seems to vanish into the background among your plants. On a larger scale, hazel makes attractively rustic hurdle-style fence panels and pretty bed edging, too.
Find out more about the astonishing number of ways you can use a hazel stick at events for National Beanpole Week taking place this weekend all over the country (www.beanpoles.org.uk).
