Vining plants need something to cling to, like a trellis. Tall and top-heavy plants like many flowering perennials require staking or cages. Saplings exposed to windy conditions need stakes to support them.

Vegetable plants

Vegetable plants that need support include:

  • Determinate tomato plants: cage
  • Indeterminate tomato plants: stakes, trellis or hanging ropes
  • Runner beans: hanging ropes, trellis or stakes
  • Peas: trellis or net, hanging ropes
  • Peppers: cage or stakes
  • Zucchini, winter squash, melon, cucumber: trellis or netting for vertical cultivation

Flowering plants

  • Peonies: stake, ring or cage
  • Sweet peas, morning glories, clematis: stakes, trellis or tepee
  • Foxgloves, sunflowers: stakes
  • Gladiolas, delphiniums: stakes or ropes
  • Hollyhocks: stakes or tepee

Fasteners

Garden Ties and Garden Tape ensure that your plants are secured firmly but gently. You can improvise with strips of cloth but products intended for the purpose are the safest bet.

Tips

  1. Get your plant supports in early, before your plants get very big. It’s a lot easier to place a cage over a tomato plant when it’s just a few inches tall than a few feet off the ground!
  2. Be sure to tie your gorgeous perennial flowers to a stake before they begin to droop. Then adjust your supports – such as loosening or adding ties or raising cages – as your plants mature.
  3. Make sure your plant supports are installed securely and that stakes driven deep enough into the ground.