Climbers

I bought my house at what I reckon was a bargain price. This is just as well when you consider that the very week that we moved in was the same week that the Northern Rock collapse, the trigger that ushered in this age of economic woe, occurred.

And when I say a bargain price, I mean a good 25 or 30 grand cheaper than anything comparable in the area, and I think I know why.

It’s all very well being in the perfect location at the very end of a quiet Cul de Sac with enough space for 5 cars at the front and having a spacious 4 bed detached house with the potential to extend, but when it comes to selling you have to get people through the door.

If you imagine a picture of the front of a square red brick house with a red garage door and not a lot else then I believe you are conjuring up an image of urban banality, not the stuff that dreams are made of. This I believe was the vendors and their agents mistake as when we saw the details we didn’t think ‘wow, we’ve got to see that’ but more ‘we are in the area anyway so let’s cross it off our list of enquiries’.

Having made the trip we found everything we were looking for, it was perfect and, at that price, a bargain. Once we were in and the urgent stuff was done I then considered the front exterior of the house and looked around our pretty neighbourhood and noticed that none of the other properties suffered from the same look of domestic blandness and so considered why. All the other properties had at least one of three redeeming features, they were either constructed from a much more aesthetically pleasing grey brick, they were rendered of half rendered or they had a leafy covering of some climbing plant to soften their features.

It wasn’t the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make. I was unwilling to demolish the property and start again with a different coloured brick and therefore weighed up the other two. So it was dropping a few grand and future hours of painting on rendering or going down the garden centre to sample their different Clematis, Wisteria, Virginia Creeper and suchlike.

Our criteria was based on the following; it must be evergreen, non-venomous, not Ivy and must grow rapidly to at least 10 metres. We found a couple of half dead Clematis Armandii so got 2 for the price of one. The picture you see below is after one full years growth, it certainly is a rapid climber.



In next doors flowerbed is a massive and very mature Wisteria. I ascertained that rather than the view of my plain red bricked side wall they would prefer to see their Wisteria trained over the fence and up a couple of trellises. The picture below is the growth from April to October.



Now the project is well under way I can be proud that I have achieved two things. Firstly, and by necessity, I have overcome my fear of ladders, or rather climbing ladders, and secondly, in years to come I could offer our estate agent of choice a picture that may initially sell the house.