Well I'm from Jasper(Goober Town), Alabama Has anyone mentioned Kudzu? We have it here thanks to Auburn University and the Japanese. Do a Google search for wonderful details about this incredible vine that you can actually watch grow. In late summer it produces a beautiful lavender to purple bloom that fills the air with the fragrance of concord grape jelly. I swear you can almost taste it. Gaahlay! Shazam! There is nothing quite like it. I'm done.

Your probably bang on with the cedars however they will take a long time to fill in an area. They don't require a lot of work compared to a vine generally speaking. I certainly don't recommend vines to fill your need because the privacy they give would generally be subject to the season. Below are some comments on the ones I have experience with. Most of the summer one of my chain link fences gets covered in Clematis Tangutica. I think it was called Clematis Bill MacKenzie. Its an amazing mess of yellow flowers. The nice thing with Bill MacKenzie was how fast it fills in during the spring over my other vines. I do have other clematis but nothing as bushy and filling as Bill MacKenzie. You could also look at Virginia Creeper but be careful as it can get out of control very fast. The neighbor behind our house has his crawling over his back fence snaking through the back lane and strangling parts of my garden. If you don't mind planting annuals every year you could try morning glories depending on the size / height of the area you want to cover. I've had good experience with morning glories all over my limited space. I'd seriously consider a long term investment though like cedars or some other type of bush. Evergreens for your area will give you all season privacy. Or if winter privacy isn't a big deal consider an edible bush like saskatoons. Well my 2 cents.

rhapsdy, yes, it's evergreen and pretty much maintenance free. I have a picture we took a few months ago. It's really hard to see, but you can see how it's growing on the back side of the fence. One thing that happened to us. I bought my first batch of Confederate jasmine at a local nursery; then sent my husband out for more, and he bought the rest at Lowe's. They both said Confederate Jasmine, but the Lowe's is a lot thicker and faster growing. (The nursery's is pretty, and blends in, but definitely not as full.) So, if you decide, be sure and buy all of yours at the same place.

You can definitely grow kiwis in Portland. I live in NoPo and planted two kiwi plants about 15 years ago. They grew quite vigorously. However, I got no fruit. A friend was cutting back her male at the time it was flowering, and I took some cuttings and simply dragged the flowers over the flowers on my kiwis, and - voila! - that fall I had a bunch of kiwi fruit. So - the Hayward kiwis that I bought from Freddies were not one female and one male, but were both females. I bought another - very scrawny - male from Portland Nursery, and have had lots and lots of fruit. I have a 16 foot tall by 5 foot wide trellis/arbor that I built on the south side of my garage. The kiwi took that over with-in a couple of years. Now they have taken over the garage roof and the neighbor's trees. Good luck!