A nine-foot-tall tower of beans? An arch with small winter squash hanging like little globes of perfection (with no slug damage). A tall fence covered with clematis or nasturtium to bring color and greenery to an otherwise drab portion of the yard?

Gardening vertically has many meanings, but here we're talking not about stacking up pots, but about planting vegetables and flowers that will swarm up a fence, arbor, or tripod. 

Many people initially underestimate the willingness of a happy vining plant to climb. A climbing or vining plant that is healthy will swarm up a vertical structure. My hops hit the top of my 17-foot free-standing trellis and keep looking for places to go. Eventually, they start climbing themselves, vines twining around each other. 

Why grow vertically?

I must admit, growing plants to climb up fences, tripods, trellises, and other supports is one of my favorite ways to garden. It saves space, makes harvest a breeze, reduces the impact of weeds, and, really, I just love the way it looks. It's one of the easiest ways to elevate your gardening skills. Check out these excellent reasons to start thinking about gardening in three dimensions.

Space-Saving

Some crops, such as melons, require a lot of space if left to their own devices. Others take up a significant area because a large number of plants are required to achieve the desired harvest. Black beans come to mind as a space hog in my garden. I grow several types of beans for shelling, and planting the bush varieties is much more space-intensive than planting vining pole bean varieties. I can fit 9-12 pole bean plants in the same amount of space as four bush-type beans. 

When growing vertically, the plant can spread out without taking up the rest of the real estate in your garden. They get access to sunlight and can sprawl without covering your pathways or invading their neighbors. Growing vertically can maximize limited gardening space on decks, patios, and balconies, allowing you to grow crops you otherwise wouldn't have room for. Let those cucumbers grow up a trellis and provide afternoon shade for you, while also yielding delicious cukes.

Plant health

We know that airflow around and under the leaves of our garden crops helps to keep fungal issues and disease down. With some crops, that can become difficult as the summer progresses and the plants grow larger. 

Growing vertically greatly increases the airflow around the leaves, reducing the humidity, which can help with diseases. It's also much easier to scout for pests and pluck them off as needed. For those of us with slug issues, I've yet to see one climb up my arch to attack a squash. 

Ease of harvest

If you haven't walked up to a bean pole and just plucked the beans off while standing upright, you've missed out on the easy way to do it. Not only is it easier than bending over to pick your produce, but it's easier to do a good job, parting the leaves and looking for all those hiding tomatoes, beans, or peas.

Hang a basket on your arm, and harvest all those beans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons without bending over, wading through foliage, and stepping on vines. 

Enhances Aesthetics:

Okay, growing vigorous plants on vertical structures just looks cool. Adding the upright element brings more design options to your garden. It looks like you planned out this cool space, even if you only put your sugar pumpkins on an arch to get them out of the way. 

Mixing flowering plants with vegetables on the same structure creates a beautiful living tower of color and food. Try morning glories with your green beans, or Thunbergia with your cucumbers.

What can I grow vertically?

Anything available in a vining or climbing form is fair game. Of course, bush beans or zucchini won’t climb a tripod or fence. 

Peas, indeterminate tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, luffa, beans, vining squash, small (sugar) pumpkins, vining nasturtiums, grapes, hops, clematis, honeysuckle, sweet peas, and more are all suitable options. 

Vertical Growing Structures and Ideas

The only rule about what elements you can use to help plants grow skyward is that they need to be sturdy enough to support the weight. If you've had overgrown tomato plants topple their skinny store-bought stakes, you understand that a mature plant gets heavy. 

There are endless options for purchasing premade arbors, trellises, and arches, ranging from inexpensive to eye-popping. But it's also fun and practical to make your own. 

Arches and Arbors

An arch or arbor can be constructed from various materials and can be either DIY or purchased. Arches and arbors are commonly made from wood, typically consisting of a few posts and some lattice. They can also be crafted from wild materials to have a woodsy, rustic look. 

The easiest arch, which I use every year, I make from a cattle panel. It's a wire mesh designed for agricultural use, typically available as a 16-foot by 50-inch section. It's long enough to form an arch a six-foot-tall gardener (me) can easily walk under, and all I have to do is anchor one side, gently curve it over to the other, then anchor that. By yourself, it's a bit of a trick, but with two people, it goes up in less than five minutes. Poof, instant garden arch, and the plants love it.

Fences

Whether functional or decorative, fences are prime real estate for growing vertically. Even a wooden privacy fence can be covered with plants, both flowers and vegetables. The chain link fence at the back of the yard is perfect for some spring peas, a couple of clematis, some morning glories, or even a row of climbing black beans. 

Tripods

I go a bit tripod nuts. I construct tripods out of three long poles cut from dead trees in the woods. The poles are only about the diameter of a soda can or slightly larger, and are about eight feet long. I tie the tops together with heavy-duty garden twine and spread the legs out to be about three feet apart, pushing them into the soil as far as possible. Then I plant beans around each pole. By midsummer, I have a tower of foliage, and come harvest time, easy picking. 

Tripods can be made of rustic materials like mine, or just about anything else you can scavenge. As a bonus, I plant kale underneath the tripod. The beans provide respite from the hot summer sun, which the kale doesn't like, and by autumn, when the beans die back, the kale is in full-bore mode, cranking out new leaves. I'm sure it doesn't mind the nitrogen boost from the beans either. 

Trellises

A trellis is simply a fence-like structure typically hung from posts or a wall. They're typically constructed of wood or metal lattice. Vining plants will send their stems in and out of the lattice with a little help, finding their way up the trellis and spreading out along the sides.

Wooden lathe trellises are commonly sold in 4' x 8' sheets and can be mounted with spacing blocks on a sunny wall in minutes. One of my favorite ways to use these sheets is to attach them to a pair of wooden posts, creating a free-standing structure anywhere in the yard for climbing plants to use. A quick garden bed around the base, and you've got a living green privacy fence. Trumpet vines work fantastically for this situation. 

Non-standard structures

Look around, and you might find some items that you can repurpose. An old ladder is definitely squash or pumpkin ready. Morning glories and nasturtiums will climb up a rain gutter downspout with a little help. They'll also happily swarm up a stout sunflower stalk. Even a rusty old car in the backyard can be covered in cucumbers, hops, or honeysuckle. 

Vertical Growing Tips

• Hang trellises on a wall so there is a few inches of air space between the wall and the trellis. If it's flat to the wall, it's much harder to train the plants to crawl up.

• Anchor any vertical growing structure well. A bunch of foliage can catch a lot of wind, and you don't want your beautiful bean tower to come crashing down.

• Consider the shade a tripod or arch might cast when planning your garden layout. The shade can be beneficial for some plants, but cause problems for others. 

• Fertilize and water climbing plants thoroughly to provide the best conditions for lush, green, and rapid growth.

• Support larger fruits, such as melons, squash, and sugar pumpkins, with netting or old hosiery. They may be okay dangling in the air, but they may not.