back a decade or two.. i knew some hosta-phile ... who grew such on her fence in pots ... smaller ones.. of course ...

see link : link

ken

This year I plan on growing moonflower vine, spanish flag, nasturtium vine, and scarlet runner beans on our fences. Last year I grew morning glories and they did well until the extreme heat burned the leaves and they looked bad. Oh, I also have 3 clematis, but it's only their second year, so they probably won't do much.

My sister has a fence something like yours only newer last year she bought a few balcony planters and planted them with annuals and some perennials. She made sure she had trailing plants along the edge that would face her yard then she spaced them along the top of the fence as needed. She also has a few flowering shrubs and clematis vines on trellises along the fence. The planters filled in the spaces between the plants growing in the soil. I wish I had a picture to show you but I don't.

You could plant something like sweet peas or morning glories to grow up a trellis or bamboo poles along the fence. They are fast growing annuals.. Then you'd be able to gradually over the years fill in your flower beds with a few shrubs

I'm with ya - also have a small back yard surrounded by a 6 ft fence and lush is the way to go. Here is a picture of the Morning glories on the fence last year. It's hard to see, but I made a trellis from two sticks with twine woven between them, which they had to climb to reach the top. Beyond that you can see a couple of hanging metal buckets with coral impatiens. I tried to grow an upside down tomato in the wire hanging basket there - you can kind of see the stem hanging down from the liner in the pic - it didn't do too well (probably won't try that again). This year I'm determined to go all out with vines and hanging plants everywhere! I'm also going to do a climbing rose right about where the pachysandra is in the pic. I ripped all of that out last fall and installed a trellis a few inches from the fence. Going to amend the soil this weekend, and then I just need to plop in my rose when the mailman brings it in about a month.

Ooh that's lovely arlene! That's exactly the look I am going for. The right side of the fence gets a lot of sun, so that would probably be an ideal spot. Ideas ideas! My neighbor has ivy planted and it's pretty much a battle to keep it out. I might try embracing it with a trellis or something. Did you not like the pachysandra? I was considering planting some in the front this year but I'm still on the fence.

And thanks the the pics ken, those colorful pots are super cute!

Thanks, ked! As far as groundcovers go, pachysandra does the job well, but I do find it a bit boring and it doesn't really fit with the cottage garden style I'm going for. We have it in a few places, and I was planning on eventually tearing it all out. But now that the snow has melted and it's one of the few green things in the yard right now I'm having second thoughts.

The nice thing about morning glories is that they prefer more of an anemic soil, so they worked well in the thin sandy strip I planted them in. But speaking of neighbors and invasive vines, I'm not sure my neighbors appreciated the encroachment into their yard (you can see how close their house is in the pic). I think I'm going to try cypress vine there this year and try to keep it contained on our side of the fence.

Good luck with your garden! It looks like you're off to a great start.