I've grown Wisley Magic runner beans for a few years and they always provide lovely straight bean pods after the loveliest of scarlet flowers. Bees love them, and so do I. This year I decided to just grow a few up a metal garden obelisk. I germinated the seeds and grew the plants a while before planting, but slugs still managed to eat all but two of the plants. So I encircled the two surviving plants with sharp gravel and they survived. I won't have a heavy crop but I am happy with what is growing. And watch those runners run. It's almost like you could watch them grow, they do it so fast. I am training the runners beans to wrap around the obelisk and it's almost as if, as soon as my back is turned, they just go any direction they please. Coincidentally, perhaps, although the climber is coiled around the obelisk, the leaves all seem to be opening on one side, the sunnier side.
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| Wisley Magic runner bean growing on garden obelisk |
I kid you not when I tell you that bees love those runner bean flowers. They really do.
Save our bees.
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| Bumblebee enjoying a runner bean flower |
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| Young beans growing from pollinated runner bean flowers |
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| Wisley Magic runner beans - a good handful |
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| Wisley Magic runner beans |
Runner beans can grow on washing lines too!
