How to Make Your Climbing Plants Look Nice

Springtime wisteria has fragrant grape-like flower racemes cascading in purple-blue and white.

Japanese wisteria

Sweet peas are the best for aroma and can be seeded undercover in February or acquired as seedlings in early spring and planted after the last frost.

Sweet peas

Roses are essential in the garden for their beauty and perfume, and there are several highly fragrant climbing varieties, such as dark pink Rosa ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ or pale pink ‘The Generous Gardener.

Roses (climbers)

Jasminum officinale f. affine, a deciduous climber with white blooms, is frost-hardy to -5°C (23°F) and prefers full sun shade.

True jasmine

Chaenomeles is one of the first shrubs to flower each year, with little clusters of red, pink, or white blossoms on its bare branches before the foliage forms.

Japanese quince

Winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum, blooms an exquisite yellow in winter before its dark green leaves grow in May.

Winter jasmine

Early-flowering Clematis macropetala 'Wesselton' has huge double flowers in mild to violet-blue colors that resemble Tinkerbell's skirt.

Downy clematis

Garden designers love the evergreen star jasmine Trachelospermum jasminoides, which produces fragrant white flowers in summer and deep green, glossy leaves that sometimes turn red in winter.

Star jasmine