Verandah graces

In any home I’ve had, where possible I have cloaked the verandah in vines as living blinds, to give me shade in Summer, fabulous colour in Autumn and sunshine in Winter. 

At my Mountain it was a mixture of Ornamental Grape/Glory Vine (Vitus vinifera) and white-flowering Wisteria.

Each verandah was also decorated with a 1904 old-fashioned climbing rose, Crepuscule. Its generous repeat flowering of raggedy apricot blossoms even survived the munching possums and taller wallabies. It has a sweet if subtle fragrance, which you can bring indoors, as its small clusters make good cut flowers.

When I left the Mountain, I couldn’t take the rose, but I took cuttings of the Glory Vine and at my next place there were a lot more verandahs for it to cloak, so it took longer, but continued to give beauty in framing the great views there. That four acre place helped me acclimatise to civilisation, but it was too much work for me, being ex-dairy land, not bush.

In the rural town of Wingham, where I was flooded out in 2021, cuttings of that Glory Vine came with me, were planted in the raised beds below, and loved it. Here the vine gave me privacy as well as shade.

The Crepuscule was harder to source, but eventually took its place and began to grace that verandah.

Now, in my final downsizing (apart from the coffin) I planted more Glory Vine cuttings; these ones were from my daughter, who’d kept the vine continuity going. They took, and rapidly did the same job.

In a serendipitous moment, I found a Crepuscule as a solitary bare-rooted cutting, on special in a supermarket. Weird that they even had a heritage rose, weird that I got the last one. It was waiting for me…

Even here on the coast, which is not often rose-friendly, it is happily growing up and along the lattice.

I can’t describe the pleasure I get from seeing my Glory Vine and Crepuscule gracing my latticed verandah externally, and giving me shade, privacy and pleasure when I look from within.

Perhaps I’m a boring gardener, but when you’ve had to move a lot, the continuity of these two plants is a comfort, a nostalgic link that I cherish.

Like my old timber furniture, they have been with me on my life’s journey, through fire and flood.