Vigorous climbers

[niminypiminy]

I have approx 100 feet of fence to cover, and I'd like to do it with climbing plants. I'm thinking of at least one rambling rose, but don't want it to be all ramblers as the flowers will be over by July. Any other suggestions? I definitely won't plant Russian vine!

how about honeysuckle? Some can be really vigorous.

Jasmine?

Honeysuckle is a great idea -- I could plant it through a rose, couldn't I, and prolong the flowering season. Jasmine would be good, but we are being overwhelmed on the other side by next door neighbour's unkempt jasmine mixed with bramble!

i thought this was going to be about crazy toddlers like my boys!! Oops!

But while i'm here - anyone recommend and evergreen-type, flowering lovely looking easy to maintain climbers?

A rambling rose might be tricky, as they prefer to go up rather than along and will soon be beyond the top of the fence. Climbers are less rigorous, but even with a fairly small vigorous climbing rose, I'm having to put trellis on the top of the fence to give it something further to climb.

Honeysuckle and jasmine will provide flowers and scent and there's a huge range of clematis to choose from - with the right choices, you can have clematis in flower nearly all year round. I like Chinese Virginia creeper, but it might be better on a wall than on a fence (depending on the type of fence, ivy and creepers can force the boards apart and do damage).

For any of these, I would put wire netting on the fence, to provide a framework for the plants to cling to.

We have winter jasmine and summer jasmine against our wall which look beautiful - we're have a trellis we're tying them to.

Cross posts, but miserablemum you could look at any of the things just suggested or solanum crispum.

However, if you have toddlers you need to think about where you plant solanum - like the potato, it's a relative of deadly nightshade and has poisonous berries so they need to be out of the boys' reach (or you need to be sure to cut them off and dispose of them).

The ideal evergreen is ivy except that it's hard to keep under control once it gets going.

Thank you - just looked at that website - it's fabulous! Many thanks.

The berries scare me so will keep looking. The climber will be on a wall so I worry about ivy and the bricks.

Its a wall next to our kitchen window and thought it would be nice to brighten up the view, as we have a resticted view to the garden.

I agree Chinese virginia creeper is a very useful plant, except that it doesn't have autumn colour. For a creeper with autumn colour I would go for Boston ivy. There is already a wire fence in front of the board fence, so no problems about support.

I can see that the only limiting factor is going to be the amount of money I want to spend...

The RHS has the best of the gardening websites. There are facilities there for finding plants for particular situations -here we have climbers and wall shrubs for shade.

If it's by the kitchen window, how about cotoneaster, which will attract birds?

Yes, fair point about Chinese Virginia Creeper's lack of autumn colour, but I was suggesting it because Boston Ivy/Virginia Creeper is so vigorous that it might swamp a mixed planting.

Wow - sorry for the thread hijack niminy!!

Love that cotoneaster - your knowledge is amazing maud I know stuff all about gardening !!

trachelospermum jasminoides - it is an evergreen which flowers all summer and the flowers smell lovely.

I've planted lots of climbers over the last year for a bit of screening. The ones that are doing best in my garden are:

Clematis Armandii (still growing daily!)
Clematis Montana Mayleen - deciduous but rampant
Honeysuckle - various types
Solanum Crispum Glasnevin
Persian Ivy
Virginia Creeper Henryana (pretty but deciduous)

I also have a climbing Iceberg rose which is lovely

Ooh, Iceberg, that takes me back, there was one in the garden I grew up in

I've always hankered after Clematis Armandii, perhaps now is the time to go for it!

Thank you, miserablemum. There are MNers who are qualified gardeners, but I'm just someone who, through lack of budget and babies not arriving to order, spent several years creating a garden from scratch. And I too come from a spoddy gardening family!

A lot of the climbers mentioned here would grow very tall and are (IMO) often better suited to a house wall than a 8ft fence. Once they have reached the top of the fence they will either flop forward onto your border/lawn or to the other side where the neighbours may aoppreciate them (or not).

A lot of climbers will go through the fence and this may cause problems with neighbours (two of my clients have this with ivy).

You also may wish to consider fence maintenance (painting, repairs).

How about annuals? There are lots of climbers, cheap to replace every year, lots of cutting flowers for the house. By autumn everything gets ripped out and you have access to the fence.

I woud suggest a mixture of climbing roses, clematis (class 2 or 3 only), and some annuals (sweet peas), some jasminum nudiflorum (winterflowering jasmine), chaenomeles speciosa (quinces) and maybe humulus lupulus (hop). If money is a consideration, you can stagger the planting. Roses best planted bare root now, clematis in Spring. Annuals gown from seed in March/April, planted out in May.

Forgot to say, honeyesuckle would be a good choice as suggested before. They will all need some kind of support and will need pruning at the right time to keep in check.

I would not plant anything that grows to 10ft ot more....

Yes, the point about vigour and outgrowing or damaging the fence has already been well made.

In my experience, growing any perennial up a fence requires a lot of vigilance because of the amount of pruning, cutting-back and general maintenance that has to be done - especially where one plant is more vigorous than the rest and had to be controlled to stop it choking the others - but it's a huge faff to plant with annuals every year, especially if the back of the bed is not very accessible.

All this advice is really helpful. To put it in context, the fence in question is a long way down the garden (our garden is 10 ft wide but 250 ft long) and can't be seen from the house. Also a ruddy great block of flats is on the other side of the fence so I am not worried about neighbour's garden. One of my plans is to plant more trees so I screen the flats out a bit, they are a real eyesore.

Hop is a great idea, we have alkaline soil so it will be happy, and jasminum nudiflorum. Honeysuckle, clematis montana (I'd have viticella types and species nearer the house where I see them more often), climbing rose also sound good.

I do annuals nearer the house and they are a bit of a faff (though worth it last year to have morning glories all summer), but the end of the garden needs to be wilder, permanent planting.

Thanks for all the advice!

and at the size of your garden!

We bought the house for the garden, which is probably a bit mad...

Is it really only 10 ft wide? That must present some interesting challenges!

Yes, it's a long narrow strip. Luckily our next door neighbour is happy for the last two thirds to be unfenced between hers and ours so it feels wider than it is. I've tried to separate it into different areas along its length but it's not the best shape I admit. But it was the biggest garden we could get for what we could afford.