Planting to cover ugly 4' timber fence dividing footpath ( 30 ' ) at front of house ?

[gingeroots]

I live in a tall Victorian semi on a busy London rd . The front of the two houses is very ugly , concrete forecourts and a fence ( 4 horizontal planks with some uprights ) dividing the length of the two forecourts .

I was thinking of taking the bottom plank off ,lifting the old small paving squares that are immediately adjacent to the fence and planting som ething to cover the fence .

Any advice on this project ? Improving the soil ? What to plant ? Was thinking a variegated ivy ? Which I would trim .

The area does have a lime tree on the pavement but other than that gets lots of light ,sun from midday in the summer .I think it will be a dry sunny position .

Any help gratefully received ,I'm very new to gardening .

And don't want to spend too much ...

You'll need to improve soli under the pavers.

Trachelospermum jasminoides is slow but worth the wait, with small green leaves and wonderfully perfumed flowers. You'll need more than one plant, depending on the area you need to cover and it needs something to climb up.It is well- behaved, unlike ivy. Will grow well in London. I used to have it growing up a fence when in the UK.

Oh jasmine ,that's a lovely idea .Thank you so much .

Regarding the soil ,what I did in my back garden ( which has dreadful compacted rubbly "soil" ) was dig down about 2 feet and get rid of most of it and mix in rotted manure from garden centre .

Is this correct approach ?My neighbour said she used mushroom compost ? Any advice ?

Have a dig around and remove rubble. If there's gravel , leave some for drainage, especially if you're on London clay.
Do not stint, get really good quality top soil, mix with a cold manure such as sheep or cow. Worm castings are good. I put in some rock minerals, too. What you'll be making is not a true soil, as that takes some time to make itself, but you can still plant in it. Once the worms arrive, you know you've got soil.

Thanks echt that's really helpful .

A quick google of rock minerals and soil makes me feel that this would be too complicated for my level !

I'm worrying now that it will be difficult to get the spade and fork in at good angle because it will be quite a narrow strip I'm working on .Think I'll need to remove a bigger area of paving stones than I intended .

But I'm motivated by the idea of lovely jasmine .When you say this can be slow to start ,what are we talking ? months rather than years ? Sorry I know that's a pretty stupid question - bound to take months and I suppose will depend on maturity of plant I start off with .

As you've got quite an area to cover, and you say it's hard to get the fork in the space, you may have to take up more paver, otherwise it will be hard for rain to get in and keep the soil reasonably moist.

Everything you do to improve the soil first will make growing easier. All of it, bar rock minerals, which seem hard to buy, can be bought at Homebas/ big garden centres. Trachelospermum will take up ot two years to grow well, and should be on a south facing- fence. There will be other, quicker climbers you can use as fillers or vary the kind you plant.

www.rhs.org.uk/plants/articles/graham-rice/10-AGM-climbers-and-wall-shrubs

These might help. You should plant before the soil cools in winter.

Thank you echt you've been really helpful .

Still liking the jasmine you suggested best .

Think I'm good to go now .