Training On Arbors Pergolas And As Ornamentals

The grape is much used to cover arbors, pergolas, lattices and to

screen the sides of buildings, few climbing plants being more

ornamental. Leaf, fruit and vine have been favorite subjects for

reproduction by ornamentalists of all ages. As yet, however, it is

seldom seen in cultivated landscapes except to secure shade and

seclusion.



Grown for aesthetic purposes, the grape is seldom fruitful, for the

vines can rarely be cultivated or deprived of their luxuriant growth

as in the vineyard. Nevertheless, grapes grown as ornamentals can be

trained so as to serve the double purpose of ornamental and

fruit-bearing plant. Grown on the sides of a building, the grape often

can be made to bear large crops of choicely fine fruit. The ancients

had learned this, for the Psalmist says: "Thy wife shall be like the

fruitful vine by the sides of thine house."



In all ornamental plantings on arbors or pergolas, if fruit is to be

considered, the permanent trunk is carried to the top of the

structure. Along this trunk, at intervals of eighteen inches, spurs

are left from which to renew the wood from year to year. The vines

should stand six or eight feet apart, depending on the variety, and

one cane is left, three or four feet long, on each spur when the

pruning is done. Shoots springing from these cover intermediate spaces

soon after growth begins. Provision, of course, must be made for a new

cane each season, and this is done by saving a shoot springing from

spur or trunk at pruning time.



The same method of training, with modifications to suit the case, may

be employed on sides of buildings, walls, fences and lattices. If the

object to be covered is low, however, and especially if fruit as well

as a covering is wanted, perhaps a better plan is annually to renew

from a low trunk or even back to the root. In this low renewal, a new

cane, or two or three if desired, should be brought out each season,

thus securing greater vigor for the vine, but greatly delaying,

especially in the case of high walls, the production of a screen of

foliage.