Hey Deanna, Your post reminds me alot of my first post here many moons ago . Allow me to share with you the great advice I received :D 1. DO YOUR RESEARCH. Go to the library, buy flower and gardening magazines, look up flowerbed pictures and designs, make regular visits to your local garden center. Take notes on what YOU LIKE: colors, for example, or perennial versus annual flowers. 2. Make a list of flowers and plants YOU like, depending on the season. Check to see if the plants you like fit your zone or are considered difficult or easy. 3. Don't be afraid to ask questions here and at the garden center. 4. Make a plan or drawing of what you'd like. Does the fence face south or north? How many hours of sunlight hits this fence? What's the soil like? (dry and sandy? rich and fertile? wet and soggy?) There's a plant for each situation. How large a bed do you want? 2ft or 6 ft deep? 5. When planting perennials, plant a minimum of 3 plants together for a desired effect. Check the blooming season so you'll have flowers throughout the season, not just 2 weeks in May or October. Any open spaces can be filled with annuals, nooooooooo problem. 6. Finally, think big... but start small. There are no finalities here, that's the fun in gardening: it's always changing. And remember, foliage plants can be just as fun as flowering plants! So what do you think? Are you up for the challenge, or should I say... a great adventure? We're all here to help you out, so feel free to ask any question. The more specific, the better. LOL

Don't know if you are still monitoring this thread, but just in case I will kick in my experience. We live in Gilbert, Az.(near Phnx), and have over 200' of 5' chainlink on our west side next to a canal. We have tried pink bower vine, potato vine, Lady Bank's Rose, snail vine, and finally, passion vine. The bower vine and potato vine were a disaster, the Bank's rose is barely holding its own (but it IS under a big cottonwood tree), the snail vine is doing ok, but not great. The passion vine seems to be the one that will take. After 3 years it has grown 20' in each direction, and has lush dark green foliage with copious beautiful large purple blooms. They smell a little funny, but are attractive nonetheless. It froze back one year, but returned with renewed vigor in the spring. Try it, you will like it! Today I was clearing the weeds and dead grass from under it and noticed that the ever-present large orange butterflies were laying 1 egg at a time on the leaves. We have never seen a caterpillar, but there must be some relationship going on. Good luck!

Personally I'd vote against ivy, but I'm fighting a veritable out-of-control infestation of it at my place, which colors my point of view. Ivy does tend to get out of bounds and require serious control measures sooner or later. Crossvine is a great choice, I think. Lonicera sempervirens, the native Coral Honeysuckle, is evergreen and mighty pretty. It can get some powdery mildew if it's stressed, and aphids occasionally like it, but it does great for me in part shade with no care. There's a thornless smilax called Jackson Vine (Smilax smallii) that's evergreen and quite well mannered -- nice looking, too. In part shade you could also try a Pipevine. Aristolochia tomentosa is the species that's native to middle TN. The big-leaved ones (A. macrophylla) are more common in E. TN, especially in the Smokies. Pipevines aren't evergreen, but they are bodacious growers and quite handsome in leaf. You have to hunt for the odd flowers in the foliage. My favorite aspect of the plant is that it's the host plant for the caterpillars of the gorgeous Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly, and I get the caterpillers and resultant butterflies on my vine every year without fail. They don't do any significant damage to the vine, and it's a treat to have that kind of beauty homegrown, so to speak. If you're in a warm z6b, that evergreen clematis (C. armandii) is a lovely plant, but truly a rampant grower. A great choice if you've got the room. You could also consider Carolina Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens -- the species name "sempervirens" means evergreen, BTW). Look for 'Pride of Augusta' or 'Margarita Cline', both hardy in z6. And there's always Virginia Creeper. I've got a fence covered up with it, and it's really quite beautiful at the moment, and come fall it's a traffic-stopper. Not evergreen, of course, but it grows so densely that I can't see through the fence in winter, either, thanks to the cascade of stems. Marty

Steelglow, How big is the fence? Do you think you could afford a reed or inexpensive bamboo fence to cover it up? You just wire it right onto your chain link fence, it's easy. Check at big box stores and online for one of those fences. I had native honeysuckle, it was beautiful coverage for 3 years, I had to move, but my neighbor, like yours with just lawn, was so sweet and allowed me to trim the vine on her side when ever I needed to. We were friends. THe vine will grow towards the sun, and if the sun comes from your neighbors side, it will grow that way. If you don't want your neighbor upset about the vine hanging a couple feet over onto his side, opt for the reed fence, and plant shrubs in front of it on your side. But, if you don't mind trimming it, yes, it is a good privacy screen and will grow rather quickly for you. Train it onto the fence, they don't twine like other vines. Good Luck!