Pam wrote:
I've found it helps to give the vine a bit of support system to get established. For
the climbing hydrangea growing up my Douglas fir, I wrapped a portion of the base of
the tree trunk with large gauge chicken wire and planted the hydrangea directly in
front, training the end tendrils up through the wire. Now the vine climbs about
15-18 feet upt the tree and you can see no trace of the wire, which is totally
obscured by the vine. Even in winter without foliage, all one sees is the tracery of
the vine stems against the tree. For a client's vine growing up a large concrete
retaining wall we used heavy test fishing line attached with eye hooks to get the
vine established and trained against the wall. The fishing line is virtually
invisible.

Once established and with a fairly flat surface to grow against, the vines are
self-supporting.

Thanks Pam, I have already been using fishing line to train the sweet
autumn clematis, so now I will probably do the same for the hydrangea.

- Alex