Can't give any advice on climbers for your situation, but how about considering a hedge row of Knock Outs. They are super easy care, grow fairly big and wide (my neighbor's is about 5ft tall, maybe 4-5ft wide). The original Knock Out is cherry red, but there are other Knock Outs available now in shades of pink, even in yellow-white.

Just a thought. I really think it would be the simplest way to accomplish what you want.

Kate

I actually have a couple of Knockouts that will be going elsewhere, but I really want some climbers for this spot (is there any way I can post a picture to show the area to be planted? I couldn't see any way to embed a photo, but perhaps I'm just missing it.). I was, however, considering perhaps planting some Knockouts between the others (maybe further away from the fence) to help mask the area even more.

But I do think it needs something to go right the way to the top of the neighbouring fence, so...

Thanks for your response!

To post pics, go to photobucket.com and register (for free). Upload your photos there. Their directions are easy to follow.

Then, copy the "html tag" beneath the picture you want to display here. Insert the html tag into the message box (you can type normally above and below it). Voila--your pic will appear embedded in your message.

Kate

I've got 2 American Pillar roses that you might find interesting. They are only once bloomers, but the flowers are very pretty. Small Pinkish, they last a long time. What I also love about this climber is the foliage. Very healthy, shiny, nice. Another good feature is that the canes are very elastic so you can shape them and train them around many garden structures. I had to prune them down to the ground this spring and although they didn't flower because of the weird weather we had, they are almost just as high and lush as they were last summer. This one is around 8' tall right now. It isn't very wide, maybe around 3 feet? I've only had it 3 years.

Another rose I really like is David Austin's Constance Spry. Another pink once bloomer, cupped shaped blooms. Classic English rose look! This spring took it's toll on this one too. Had to prune hard, down to the ground, I've never seen such a wicked cold spring as this one. Hope to see the lovely blooms again next spring. Very lush, dark green big leaves, hides the trellises, fat round leaves. 7' tall, 4'wide.

Both are definite cottage garden style climbers complete with catmint underplantings!

Betty

Ok, a picture. Please excuse the horror - this yard hasn't been touched in about 50 years, I think, and this is the first chance I've had to start cleaning it up! It's a mess.

This is the "before" picture of where I want to plant these guys - the brown mess is actually after I attacked the mass of vines that were there with super strength Roundup; that's poison ivy (which my poor neighbour found out the hard way - we didn't even know it was there until she erupted, poor thing). It gets about 6-8hrs of sun.
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This is last weekend after I pulled some more vines and used a (borrowed) tiller to dig it up. I've dug in some Bumper Crop in anticipating of fall planting. (Should I leave it covered?)
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As you can see, the fence is extremely unsightly, hence why I want to cover it up! Also, I need to whack back that tree weed thingie that's grown up alongside the house; there are peonies and daylilies in there, but I think they're getting too much shade so I want to open it up for them. Plus it will just look nicer :)

And Betty - catmint! Perfect. I was considering putting some herbs in there anyway due to the full sun and that would be just right. The only other "real" garden I've ever had used lavender to underplant roses and I loved it, I just know that lavender is a bit temperamental round here, but this would be a perfect alternative. Thanks for the suuggestion!

You and I are planning the same type of planting. I have a fence that divides my property from the neighbor's driveway. It is about 200' long, and I think it's the perfect place for a row of rampant hybrid wichurianas.

Vigorous growth and good foliage are my main objectives for this space. (I already have Dr. W. Van Fleet, and I love him.) Once-blooming, repeat-blooming . . . doesn't matter here, since I'm putting summer-blooming clematis in the mix also.

Here's the list I've come up with so far:
Alberic Barbier
Aviateur Bleriot
Albertine
Awakening
Madame Gregoire Staechlin
City of York
Evangeline
Francois Juranville
Gardenia
Leontine Gervais
Madame Alice Garnier
New Dawn
Paul Transon
Thelma

Where in MD are you? If the drive to Fredericksburg, Va., doesn't scare you, you should consider joining us on Oct 21 at the GW Plant Swap Social.

Connie

divamum,

Wow, you can already see improvements in your before and after shots!

Something else that would look great is maybe staining or painting that wooden fence behind the chain link? You can eventually cover most of the chain-link using it as a support for some sorts of vines, I like the old fashioned morning glories as well as clematis to go w/ my roses, and any vine would love that type of support!

If you power washed and stained that fence or paint it in a fresh color your climbers would look beautiful up againts that fence!

Betty:)

I hope Olga shows up and gives you a list of climbers that are easy care for her in MD. It seems that your area has a very strong and different strain of blackspot from other parts on the east coast, so her advice would be essential for you.
I think she found Paradise, Illusion, Quadra and New Dawn to be good but I think the best is to ask her.

I'm not as experienced as others, but in straight opinion for what it's worth, for at least the first few years, climbers wont give you the bushiness or the coverage you're looking for.

My experience of climbers (limited) has been that they go up and up and up with long canes rather than dense growth.

I put in my Don Juan thinking I would get climbing coverage for my front windows which look directly into my neighbors front windows.

Instead I ended up with a plant whos growing habits had tall in mind, (seven feet tall in the first season,) but gave little to no coverage. Because the canes were coming in from the tips of the previous canes rather than the bottom of the plant. I had 4, 7 foot canes that eventually lost most of their leaves near the bottom of the plant.

Meanwhile I'm creatively pruning like crazy trying to thicken it up.

Morning glories would look cool on that back part of the fence.

Dr Van Fleet is good------Paul's Himalayan Musk stays green all summer and gets really big

Albertine is another biggie---Each year it tries to eat my house
Here it is this year My DH has to get up on the roof to prune it---LOL

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Here is Paul's Himalayan Musk
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Gardenia is another lovely aggressive climber---

My yard is being taken over----LOL

Good Luck,

Florence

On the roof!? Oh, my. I'm really glad now that I have decided to plant these babies on 24' centers.

Paul's Himalayan Musk is beautiful. I have a mulberry tree with his name on it.

Connie

Red Cascade is a lovely red rose and agressive climber as is one of the old garden varieties--Ballerenia. I have several pics of each on my website's photo album. See link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Perennial And Rose Gardening

Wow wow wow! Thanks everybody for all the suggestions... and the gorgeous pictures!

I'll research all the strains mentioned, although just a reminder that I'm in Maryland where BS seems to be extra bad (I havent heard of a few of these before, which makes me wonder whether they do well around here). Btw, in searching this site's archives I did find a list that "Olga" posted a couple of years ago, which included both New Dawn and Awakening as ones which do pretty well around here. I'd welcome further thoughts, though!

As to that picket fence, Betty - I wish I could paint it or something but, alas, it's not mine - that's the neighbours house (we're on a hill that direction, thus their grade is about 5-7ft higher than ours). REally, all I can hope to do is grow over it :)

Mandi, as for bushy: I realise it will take some time - I'm assuming (hoping?) that over the next 4-5 years the plants I put in now will do their thing and be covering up that fence a little more each year. If the canes want to grow up, what happens if you peg them over as they get long enough, so they spread out and mound a bit more?

To add to my questions: what about Mermaid? Another weed-riddled and miserable corner (jungle!) along the back fence is being cleared as we speak (I gave up on that one and got some college lads with chainsaws and better heat tolerance than I have to come and do it for me). A huge mounding mass of something I LIKE and that would hopefully over time compete with the brush that seems to want to grow there would be awesome. I saw some pictures of Mermaid (also on Olga's list as doing quite well in these parts) and it got me to thinking about a way of making that ugly corner prettier but relatively easy to maintain..... :)

Thank you everybody SO SO MUCH! Keep those ideas coming!

--How much direct sun? With the lack of grass, I wonder if it is deep shade.

--If the sun is mostly from the other side of the picket fence, a climbing rose will grow through and over the picket. Is your neighbor OK with being invaded by thorny rose canes?

--One New Dawn or Other vigorous climber can cover a 20 x 6' area. You force the canes down into low arcs along the fences.

--New Dawn or its sport Awakening would be a good choice. ND is very vigorous, repeats well, doesn't need spraying. Several of the varieties suggested so far are only June-blooming.

--You could plant morning glories the first 2-3 years to. Cover the bare fence. Be sure to plant sterile hybrids or you'll have a permanent plant-pest problem.

Another rose that no one else seems to grow is the one I have by my front door. IT is "Summer Wine" from Heirloom. It throws big flushes of lovely semi single roses all summr. THey are a light raspberry with a golden center, though when it is hot they turn to a beautiful coral and gold. It grows very vigorously for me, and when the wind took down the trellis last winter I had to cut it almost back to the ground but by MAy it was up at the top again and bursting with buds! It has had some bloom all summer and is starting a bigger flush again now. And one other big benefit is huge orangehips that light up the autumn! THe Foliage is thick and shiny green and almost alwasy looks great in my no spray garden. IN the winter the bare branches hang over my office window and those orange hips are like neon against the cloudy winter sky! Scent is mild but pleasant.

I like Climbing Cecile Brunner for covering things. It gets big, but its not going to be as aggressive as some. The space you have is narrow, and I would be careful about a monster in that area. Remember they grow canes that will fall/blow everywhere, so you could get some long ones that wind up in your pathway. Another choice would be one of the thornless "mannerly climbers" eg Nur Mahal. Finally, you may just want to get a big bush eg Mutabalis, and train it to be more of a climber.

Michael G:

Thanks for your reply! The current neighbour is absolutely fine with some escapees - she loves roses, but just doesn't want to grow them :) And believe me, it would be WAY better than the tangled mass of vines that have been there until now.

As for the grass - I fear that the problem there is not lack of light, although you've got me wondering now and I shall be checking it every hour to get the precise times the sun is moving across! I believe it's about 6-7 hrs a day). No the problems there are that the "grass" wasn't much to begin with, my husband got a little overenthusiastic with the low cut on the mower, this was my first outing with the tiller (some of the tilled ground is visible and not under the tarp), and we're also in the middle of 3 weeks of 95+ degree temps. Everything is struggling just now.

We plan to reseed once it's cooled offf a little bit; the front needs some help, too...

Is that 20' high and 6 feet wide or the other way around? Thanks :) My plan is indeed to try to bend the canes down to move along the fence. How does one prune them once they're bent down (and does a climber need aggressive pruning in the autumn, or do you just let it grow wild and shape it up as required? Sorry - I'm learning as I go!)

Lizalilly: Summer Wine sounds gorgeous - I'll check it out and see if it does ok in this area :)

I'm also now researching morning glories. I can't tell you how grateful I am for all these suggestions!

Thanks again everybody - this is an amazing resource of generous folks!!

I meant 20' wide, but a vigorous climber can climb a 20' tree as well.

After the trained cane stops growing, it will make some short flowering laterals and some strong laterals. You can tuck the long laterals in semi-horizontally or just cut them back to 2-3 leaves after flowering.

Pruning is just removing diseased, winter damaged, or inconvenient cane sections at any time. After a few years you can start removing a few of the oldest canes each year. Don't routinely cut back climber canes unless you want to make it become a bushy shrub.

JB: Thanks! Cecile Brunner is one of the other ones I've had strongly recommended and have been researching (should have been on my original list,oops) and since I see you're in VA presumably it would do well here, too. The space it'll take up isn't that big a deal - that side yard is never used, so as long as it's possible to keep basic access it's fine, and if bigger rose means less mowing then that's actually a GOOD thing - but I take your point about the size. Definitely worth knowing!

MichaelG: thanks for the info on pruning (I'll be saving this whole thread for the wealth of info here!)

Next question: how would it work if I were to mix two varieties along that fence, eg New Dawn AND Cecile Brunner? Does the larger one "swallow" the less aggressive one, or is it possible to intertwine them altogether? (Even better if one had two bushes of different colours so eventually you have a mix of both sets of flowers... hmm.... :)

Apologies for my ignorance here - as I say, I'm learning loads as I go along, but a lot of this is new to me! Thanks again for all the wonderful suggestions and advice :)

Hi, diva
I have one question. Do you need to have climbers instead of shrubs? There are plenty of tall, bushy roses that will give full coverage, and you will have less upkeep in terms of pruning and training long, thorny canes. Yes, a climber can give fast coverage, but for long term maintenance, the right sized large bushy rose can be far superior. I have mixed crazy things like a noisette with a Illusion. You could use Darlow's Enigma, assuming it is blackspot resistant, and Illusion. They give a lot of coverage and require no fussing and are unlikely to out grow your space and require a cherry picker for pruning in 8 years. Just food for thought.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:267091}}