where are you

how much sun ... etc ...

ken

Ken,

I'm in zone 6b.

The area is between two 2-storey homes so it does get early morning and late afternoon shade, but the sun does hit it during the middle of the day. I'd wondered about the yucca since I have them elsewhere in full sun but the ones planted here along the fence are as big and happy as the rest of them.

Thanks...

Chinese wisteria is an invasive plant. When it escapes cultivation (via seeds) into woodlands, it eventually strangles and kills the trees. I have witnessed this in one of our parks. There are probably many non-invasive plants that will suit your purpose, including a much less aggressive native wisteria, but, as Ken said above, we need to know what the growing environment is.

We're in the suburbs and don't have woodland near us. The neighbors in question do have some trees, but they've sadly become nuisance plants because they aren't maintained. There's a birch planted right on the property line that's never been trimmed or thinned and we pick up its branches literally every day and I don't know what to do about it. One tree, a mulberry, was a "gift" from the birds. I'd pointed that out, then as it grew bigger I'd offered to remove it, but there it is ... and besides dropping all over their roof it stained our patio quite a bit before we trimmed everything that was over our yard.

A friend of mine about 5 miles away has Chinese wisteria that grew over a disused satellite dish and in the summer it shades his outdoor bar. I loved the "canopy" aspect of it -- and the fact that it serves as a quick-growing privacy hedge -- so that's what made me think of it as the between-house solution. The neighbors don't believe in drapes and their bedroom and bathroom (with clear panes) are on that side of the house, so it's important that the privacy screen be tall.

I do grow bamboo in pots and had also considered that for on the side behind the fence. There isn't enough room for arbor vita and it would take too long for them to grow tall enough. But I'm open to anything that will work.

State and nearest city, please.

Akron, Ohio, zone 6b

i agree with all the do-not-plant-wisteria-there comments... (and we grow both Chinese and Japanese wisteria and love them!). Wisteria take a lot of work to maintain in a controlled fashion. Left uncontrolled, they would become a nightmare for both you and the neighbour! We grow both our wisterias as small 'trees', which make them easier to access and control. I would never grow them on a tall structure as it would make pruning them for control harder if you always needed to be climbing a ladder to do so! If you want to grow vines there, something easier to control and maintain (a large Group 3 clematis...?) would be a better choice if the conditions are suitable for them.

Wisteria, grown and maintained well, is a thing of beauty...but as a privacy screen, this really is a long term plan. To grow wisteria well, a framework must be established (with twice a year pruning)...and this can take several years as the woody stems need to be both separate and distinct, yet robust enough to support numerous racemes of blossom. Wisteria is a vine and not a multistemmed shrub and to actually fill in a considerable space will take a lot longer than you might have hoped. Clematis..and vines in general, are not really the best solutions for privacy UNLESS GROWN ON A SUPPORTING TRELLIS...which will also partially solve your problem. In short, my suggestion is to install higher fencing or trellis or screening...and then consider the plants which will do well in that aspect.

I appreciate all the input.

One thing to note, we can't go higher than four feet between houses so the fence there is as high as it goes.

Is there a type of plant that's better for privacy than vines? I don't believe I have enough room on the other side of the fence for arbor vita. I was thinking bamboo might be another option, if planted in sunken pots. If I put down a root barrier is wisteria a good option? Any other ideas?

can we have a pic of the situation .. ken

Not home now, will have to do that over the weekend.

The area in question is about 3' wide and 22' long.

Have to admit I love Campanula's photo - makes me want to build a frame along the fence and grow it!

With some shelter provided by houses, a rambling rose might be a faster option than a vine. Certainly can fill in space and can also be self-supporting with the right type. Ramblers and hybrid musks can often manage with less sun than other roses - I have an arvensis which grows in my woodland - while a rose such as Darlow's Enigma can fill a space in a couple of seasons. A pic would definitely be helpful.

I would avoid the temptations of bamboo - this is not an easy option, even with root barriers...and can look ratty for large parts of the year (it is mainly grown for the decorative culms rather than foliage).

To get a show like the one in camp's picture would take a lot of pruning - do you really want to be up on a ladder doing that?! Wisteria trunks remain quite flexible even when quite woody so are not good at being self-supporting. I'd bet there are lots of wires or other supports hidden under the plant material in that picture!

What is the usual answer for living screens between houses? (Especially when height is desired -- ideally we would be screening out the open second floor windows.) Is the arbor vitae still king? I know the emerald variety is fairly thin so maybe the area could support a lot of them...

There is a permanent structure built at the Highway Patrol Gardens at the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia, Missouri. The structure is probably 25-30 feet long and 10 feet high and covered with wisteria. It is constructed of UTILITY/TELEPHONE POLES with STEEL hog panels bolted into place to form the 'roof.' A heavy-duty structure to support a heavy-duty vine.

We used to live at a house that had a wisteria. It had trunks coming up from the ground as big as my calf. And I'm not a skinny girl.

No way would I ever plant wisteria in the situation described.

Indeed, I have been admiring the wisteria in my pic for over 30 years. As Woody states, underneath the abundant growth, there is a permanent structure of stranded, galvanised wire - the sort used in suspension bridges - while the framework consists of ropes of thick, twisted stems as broad as a soccer players thighs.

Just a note though - the Chinese wisteria is considerably more vigorous than the Japanese macrobotrys...if height is not an issue, I would always choose the much longer racemes (almost a yard long) of the Japanese variety rather w.sinensis...although I admire this beast in other people's gardens rather than mine (I have my very own rampant climbing rosy thugs to contend with in the limited space).

As I said above, we grow both Chinese wisteria and a Japanese W. floribunda. The Chinese one was planted in 2000 and the Japanese one in 2007. We find the Japanese one much more vigorous than the Chinese one! The Chinese one stopped putting out many root suckers after about 5 years or so in the ground - we get one root sucker every year or two now; the Japanese one is still producing maybe a dozen suckers a year around the base of the trunk. Since the Japanese one produces foliage more-or-less at the same time as the flowers while the Chinese one flowers mostly before the foliage emerges, the Japanese one needs the foliage pruned back to display the flowers well. So our experience has been that the Japanese one needs more maintenance than the Chinese one.

Looking at Camp's picture again, I wonder if that one is pruned by someone in a bucket truck - that would be easier, safer and faster than pruning from a ladder or some sort of staging. Camp. - have you seen it being pruned? If so, what are they doing to access it?

How about a row of Thuja standishii x plicata 'Green Giant' planted about 5 feet apart?

Because the framework is so established, the pruning is done from a ladder since the plant grows against the wall of a building. My pic does not show the extended growth of some 30feet or so along the edge of the garage wall...which, while 30feet long, is less than 3feet deep and held tightly to the wall so it only extends a foot or so into the street. The summer pruning is basically a tidying up of new growth, leaving a couple of feet or so...while the January prune is much harder, taking all the whippy summer growth back to the main trunks, leaving only a few inches of branch (like a cordon apple).

How about yours Woody. I have always fancied a standard wisteria but usually been dismayed by the necessity for metal umbrella frames (I have seen these used for weeping roses also). A few of the colleges grow these very well indeed using forged iron fencing as supports. Now I have a metal working son, I might reconsider this lovely plant (had my eye on Black Dragon forever).

Another thought: privet. We have some elsewhere on the property and it grows very well and tall -- it's about 15' high.

We need height for this privacy screen but don't want a plant that will tear down our nice new fence.

Camp. - our 'tree' wisterias are rather crudely done! :-) We just keep them to a manageable size without being overly concerned with making a 'perfect' tree shape! We are also not fussy about pruning and the idea of only pruning twice a year would drive me nuts as they would look very messy indeed in between prunings! We prune all new growth back into the framework we want to keep it to as the new growth gets 2-3' long - essentially we prune weekly - sometimes daily! - to keep them looking tidy. We have kept the Japanese one to a smaller framework from the beginning, based on how fast we found the Chinese one grew. So the Japanese one looks a tad more orderly than the Chinese one. We now have them suspended between angle-iron posts, with metal tie-rods connecting the posts. Way back when... we started out with far-too-flimsy wood supports and moved to the angle-iron as the wood failed.

The Chinese one is less hardy than the Japanese one and had a couple of rough winters. It also was getting too tall to easily prune with the long-arm pruners so last summer we whacked it back hard. It's looking a bit rough at the moment but will fill out again when growth commences in the next month. We also grow a Henryi clematis into the Chinese one. I'm still not sure whether the wisteria flowerbuds survived this past winter, but I'm still hopeful.... We don't use any sort of frame to shape the 'trees'.

I've posted most of these pictures here in the past but they will illustrate for you what we do:

2013 was the last spring that both bloomed well. You can see both of them in the picture below. Note that they grow in the 'moatbed' at the top of the ditch, which means standing on a slope to prune on one side, effectively making them taller - hence the real need to control height to make pruning easier. Also note that the Chinese one (which is just finishing blooming in the picture) blooms before most of the foliage emerges while the Japanese one is blooming with lots of foliage already emerged - so the Japanese one needs to be pruned to facilitate allowing the flowers to dangle free from under the foliage, while the Chinese one needs to be pruned to encourage all-over flower production.

The Chinese one during the severe hacking-back last summer:

The Japanese one early this spring so you can see the shape - I try to keep it vaguely like an upside-down umbrella to let the flowers dangle:

So, Camp., if you want to grow a wisteria as a standard/'tree', go for it - be prepared to prune hard but do what makes sense to you rather than feeling to bound by the rules you are 'supposed' to follow. My experience is that the Chinese one will set flowerbuds every time you cut new whippy growth back - you can end up with a nice summer bloom at times! The Japanese one I have has never done a summer bloom but it does produce lots of those stubby spurs as a result of the constant pruning.

I like to prune. I can see pruning so that the growth occurs above the 4' fence line. And planting them in 5 gallon buckets. Oh, it's so tempting!

Can you build a post and wire support system higher than 4feet. Because if so, there are some more interesting options which involve pruning and training - think espaliered fruits, fan trained cherries (morello cherry is suitable for shade), espaliered pyracantha (this has the huge virtue of being evergreen, spiky and very amenable to training to keep a flat, 2 dimensional shape in a limited area. I have used this myself as a privacy fence for a customer. Or vitis cognetiae or other grapevines. In truth, any vining plant will need a wire support system.

Privet...I am rather fond of this - not least because of its handily late flowering. I am less keen on l.ovalifolium and prefer the wilder l.vulgare but yep, privet does have advantages of being fast and more or less undemanding. Back in my novice gardening days, I was reading one of those 'keys' where a plant is listed as being suitable for various problem areas. I couldn't help but see that 'ligustrum' was in every column. Wow, what was this amazing plant? Was slightly miffed on realising it was privet.

Camp, sorry for the late reply. I'd logged out and apparently didn't get the email update to the thread.

Anyway, yes I can build a post and wire support system higher than 4 feet, so I'm going to look into your other options. I've built my own support system for grapes and it's about 10 feet high.

I love good old fashioned privet but I think it has to be ruled out here, because every reference I checked says its height limit is 12 feet. That's not quite enough for what we want to do. Our huge privet specimen is probably maxed out as well, because it's 12 feet high now.

We had a master gardener visit the other day and she again suggested an aggressive fast-growing bamboo, but grown and trained in 5-gallon pots with drainage on the bottoms. She said one can do the same with Wisteria sinensis and thought I shouldn't rule it out if I'm willing to prune. HOWEVER, it's a beautiful fence that we have and I don't want to plant anything that will damage or break it.

I also realized that I don't have to pick a single plant. If we do bamboo, we can have several plantings of them in strategic places to cover the windows, and maybe a clematis up front or trumpet vine or any of these others suggested on the thread...

IME, you won't want trumpet vine/Campsis radicans; choose trumpet honeysuckle/Lonicera sempervirens instead. Trumpet vine/Campsis is about as aggressive as Wisteria, sending up suckers all over, damaging buildings, and overwhelming other plants.

Please do some research and ask locally about bamboo. In the 80s and 90s, bamboos were promoted relentlessly in the UK. When I started out as a pro-gardener (design and build), I almost gave up because so many of my jobs involved the (difficult and exhausting) removal of bamboo. Contrary to popular supposition, it rarely remained within bounds...even with high grade rootbarriers. However, a number of customers had also planted bamboo above ground in galvanised containers...which did a reasonable job of maintaining a clumping form...but what hardly anyone had considered was the enormous amount of water these plants require to look decently clothed. A dry bamboo is a horror of brown, dessicated foliage (hard, sharp little leaves at that) which littered the ground on a daily basis...while the culms themselves were semi-naked with a mix of green and dull tan leafage. A most unnattractive look which resembled the famous lush bamboo groves of those Chinese films (Creeping Tiger, Raise the Red lantern, Hero etc.etc.) not one bit. Thankfully, the fad for bamboo (so easy to propagate and sell for eye-watering prices) has finally crawled to a stop here in the UK...after so many home-owners watched their pond-liners, concrete paths, foundations and walls simply crumble beneath the persistence and vigour of a rampant phyllostachys.

Post and wire gives you numerous options - from roses and jasmines to glory vine, ampelopsis, akebia quinata, climbing hydrangeas, tropolaeums, passiflora, clematis and honeysuckles...with a huge number of easy (from seed) and interesting annuals and temporary climbers to amuse you with different additions every year (thunbergia, eccremocarpis, gourds, sweet peas, ipomea, cobaea, runner beans...

Since Campanula showed her favourite Wisteria, I'll show mine. A little past its best now but still an amazing sight and scent. I don't know how old it is but it has a trunk like a tree. Could well be 100 at least. It is pruned carefully every year.

I wouldn't plant anything on the neighbor's side - especially if it might be on their property or taken by them to be. Especially not a giant, grasping woody climber. Last year I had a neighbor spray and spoil a rose I had planted on my side of a shared wood fence because he doesn't know plants, and it had poked through onto his side about a foot or so.

Embothrium, we have four feet of property on the other side of the fence. I'm going to use it. That said, it is a problem because they are the kind of people who, once they move in, assume that at least twenty feet of all neighboring property is theirs to do as they wish. So they've already encroached quite a bit and that doesn't fly with me. On that side I want exactly a giant, grasping woody climber. Especially if it means it will cover the clear bathroom windows so we no longer have to see what we don't want to see.

floral_uk that's so beautiful! Love it! Does it give your fence any problems or does the trunk have its own support?

I'd call wisteria fast-growing only after it is established. My Chinese wisteria only grew 6 inches its first year. It did grow 10 feet the next year. The roots can really spread - I see suckers ten feet from the trunk. I also prune several times a year.

Creed, it's not my own wisteria. It's my favourite which is just one I see often. The trunk grows up from the basement lightwell. Heaven knows where the roots go. It does not appear to have bent the iron railings.

Oh, ok, haha!

I have been enjoying clematis vines around here. I know I can do all sorts of things with clematis, morning glory seeds, privet, and so on, but few options will give the required height. Wisteria and bamboo appear to be the best options for that. I have to look into post and wire. I've seen people grow grapes near us vertically on 30' posts. We have grapes on this side of the house and they're doing well on their 12' posts.

Coming late to this post. There is an option that I am surprised no one has mentioned, Actinidia kolomikta 'Arctic Beauty'. If you do not care about the fruit you can just grow the colourful male. It grows quickly and is easily trained.

Thank you, peren.all! I'd never heard of Actinidia kolomikta but looking it up I see this is definitely something that fits the bill!

We are making our final decision this weekend, hopefully. Going to be making the rounds at all the nurseries to see what's available. So excited!