The Wonders of a Gourd Pergola

Sunny, bare areas in the yard or landscape are a great place for a pergola, a structure on which to grow vines. Depending on the vines used on it, a pergola can become a source of extra income, a shady place to sit, a beautiful thing to admire, a conversation starter, and an all-around first-rate complement to the garden.

Pergolas come in all shapes and sizes and can be made out of various materials of wood or metal. Most use easy-to-buy and inexpensive lumber that can be treated or painted. Pergolas also can be bought in kits and constructed on site. Carpenters and handymen can construct them from their own designs or from designs found in books or on the Internet.

Vines for Pergolas

One of the main decisions associated with the structure is figuring out what to grow on it once it is up. Some examples are climbing roses, trumpet vine, morning glory, and wisteria.

Roses can be beautiful and smell wonderful on the pergola, though they are not everyone’s thing and can be difficult to maintain and keep healthy. Trumpet vine is especially maintenance and care-free and attracts hummingbirds and butterflies; however, it has a tendency to become aggressive, and the seeds will create a whole yard full of trumpet vines if one isn’t careful to pluck them out.

Morning glories are also beautiful flowers and grow quickly with little care, yet they are annuals and require planting every year, though the seeds will often produce new vines the following year. Wisteria is the queen of climbing plants with the showiest flowers of all vines. Its drawback is that it is fairly slow-growing and slow to bloom; still, given a few years time, this vine can put on quite a show on a pergola.

Ornamental Gourds

An uncommon, yet very productive, choice is an ornamental gourd vine. Gourds have huge leaves and make a great shade when they reach the top of the pergola and amble across it. They produce fruits that are fun to watch grow and are also a great product to work with after they are harvested. Although they are annuals, they are easy to grow and to remove after they have matured on the pergola.

There are a great variety of gourds – birdhouse, luffa sponge, apple, snake, goblin egg, bushel, and dipper, to name a few. People who want to use the gourds or sell them to crafters would be wise to grow birdhouse or apple gourds, which are both perfect for making abodes for the feathered friends. Another useful gourd is the luffa sponge gourd, which can be dried and used for exfoliating rough skin.

Gourds love heat and will grow well in a hot summer climate. They do not need a huge amount of water, but it is good to keep them watered, especially if the weather gets excessively dry. Some vines might be visited by squash bugs, but these are easy to control by simply plucking them off the vine and stepping on them.

The gourds can grow on the vines as long as the weather holds out and it does not frost. When harvested in the fall, they can be cleaned and stored in a dark, dry place to completely dry out before they are put to use.

All-Season Enjoyment

As they are growing, gourd vines are fun to watch to see what shape each fruit will make. Snake gourds can be shaped as they are growing so that they can become like the reptile itself, and when they are dry, they are easy to paint with a suitable reptilian design.

A pergola is a wonderful structure in anyone’s yard or garden, especially if the decision is made to grow gourds on it. In fact, the gourd pergola is truly an all-season charmer, as it is exciting to watch grow in the spring, provides shade in the summer, generates fruit in the fall, and makes itself available for numerous crafting projects through the winter.