Care-free vines: hints for growing scarlet runner bean

With scarlet runner bean, you can have your ornamental vine and eat it, too! Producing colourful flowers followed by edible green snap beans, the more beans you pick from the vine, the more flowers it will grow. Here are some hints for properly planting scarlet runner beans.

[Image credit: iStock.com/space-monkey-pics]

There are many great reasons to grow scarlet runner bean vines in your yard, garden or in a container.

• When grown on a fence, scarlet runner beans bring a decorative touch to the vegetable garden.
• Give them a string trellis and the vine can become a temporary summer sunscreen for porches or decks.
•  You can create a teepee of bamboo poles and train scarlet runner beans into a summer playhouse for young children. What fun!
• By pushing a tripod of thin stakes into a large container and allowing the vine to grow upwards, you'll enjoy a portable plant show to decorate almost any corner of the yard.
• As a bonus, you can expect to attract the interest of hummingbirds when scarlet runners begin to bloom.

Loose clusters of attractive, deep orange-red flowers give this vine its common name. However, several cultivars offer slightly different variations on the scarlet theme, including:

• 'Scarlet Emperor' – prized for both the flavour of its beans and the rich colour of its blossoms, which appear along 1.8-metre long (six-foot) vines.
• Grown in North America since the 1600s, 'Painted Lady' bears bi-coloured red-and-white blossoms on 2.4-metre long (eight-foot) vines.
• A pure white-flowered version, 'Albus', is also available from some mail-order nurseries that carry heirloom varieties.
• A newer variety, the 55-centimetre (22-inch) 'Dwarf Bees', is a scarlet runner in compact bush form that's ideal for pots or baskets.

Like other beans, scarlet runner bean vines grow best in warm, well-drained soil. Wait until after the last spring frost before planting.

• Sow the large seeds in pairs in the garden, spacing each pair 15 to 20 centimetres (six to eight inches) apart.
• Plant the seeds 2.5 centimetres (one inch) deep and about eight centimetres (three inches) away from their support, whether it be poles, a wire fence or strings attached to a porch roof.
• After they grow upwards for 45 centimetres (18 inches) or so, the vines may be trained horizontally, if desired, onto a lower fence, a stump or other support.

To grow from seed indoors

• In colder climates, you may want to start seed indoors in spring to give young plants a head start. Don't rush! These fast-growing seedlings will be ready to transplant within three weeks of sowing.
• Plant two seeds to a 10-centimetre (four-inch) pot. When the seedlings sprout, snip off the weaker one. When transplanting, disturb the roots as little as possible.

Fertilizer requirements

• Soils that are high in nitrogen can result in very leafy vines and few flowers, so be stingy with fertilizer – whether or not they are planted in a bed or a pot.

Thinking ahead for next year

• Allow some of the broad, flat pods to mature to a mahogany colour, then dry, shell and save the seeds for planting next year.

Pest problems

Four-footed pests like rabbits, woodchucks and deer relish these vines.

• The best defence is to grow them inside a fence, patrolling the garden with a dog or applying a commercial repellent as the label directs.
• For scarlet runner bean vines grown in containers, you could temporarily move them into a closed-in verandah or pergola to shield them from undesirable nibblers. Just don't forget to move them back outside again!