How many climbers are too many

[billybagpuss]

I have a wall prob 5 to 6 m long. Good soil sunny wall and it then goes onto a back wall of prob about 3 m .

On the back wall I have put a honeysuckle, its north facing and a pruning group 3 clematis which may be a mistake as the honeysuckle is going to be a brute.

In march I have some clematis arriving. One is a Montana, so I was going to put in the corner so it can argue with the honeysuckle, they are both strong enough to hold their own. The other 2 are a napaulensis and a aromatica. they came as a set so you get all year colour.

The Napaulensis, I'm not massively familiar with but sounds to be quite vigorous so I thought to put it down the other end. The Aromatica is more delicate and a group 3 pruning group. I would love to put a yellow rose in with it but think I might be expecting too much with 2 brutish big growers.

What do you think AIBU to put 4 climbers on one wall and will the delicate clematis get swamped.

What are they attached to? If it's easy to prune them you could risk it.

Montana will definitely take over but I expect you could prune seriously each year. Ime most climbers get rampant and too big after a few years.

Thank you, that’s kind of where my head was at. They’ll be easy to access and to prune, they’ll be on a trellis on a standard garden wall at the back of my veggie patch.

I have a honeysuckle and Montana planter together and have to cut them down to the ground each year and they're still monsters. I wouldn't plan anything else there because I think they'll get swamped

The honeysuckle was planted about a month ago and is just out of shot to the left of the compost heaps. I was thinking of putting the Montana to the right of the compost and the other one next to the greenhouse, but wonder if putting a rose and the purple one in the middle would be too ambitious

I would be prepared to get rid of the C montana completely in a few years. Neighbour had one which covered his roof and went up the chimney. I have one in a 20ft rowan - I prune it now and again by selecting one of the stems and sawing through it.

Even climbers that you can prune can get too much. I used to have a Boston Ivy which I cut to ground level each autumn - it still made it to gutter level every year.