My experience with ivy and retaining walls is that it will quite easily grow up one........but not nearly as easy to grow down. It will extend shoots outward from the top of the wall but after they achieve a bit of length, they start bending upwards towards the sun.

The height of the wall may have some bearing. With of a wall of 3-4' or more, the growing shoots have always curled up. with a shorter wall, they may stay extended downward long enough to attach. Or you could help them along by anchoring..........

It will hang down from the top of a wall but I don’t know how easy it would be to get it to do so intentionally. I’ve only seen it doing this in wild situations. An evergreen, which afaik, is not invasive and which will grow downwards is Cotoneaster dammeri.

Near a sidewalk it can't be any Cotoneaster. Many send out long arching branches four feet long that would impede the sidewalk. Some are deciduous. I have the evergreen Cotoneaster dammeri 'Streib's Findling', a cultivar that stays flat as a pancake growing eight feet straight down a boulder wall.

At my old house I had a short (maybe 2ft) retaining wall along our driveway with English ivy growing along the top and it loved to trail down the wall and several feet across the driveway. I would chop it off to keep it from getting completely out of control and it was always happy to grow back down the wall. Beware though, it also loved to grow into the poor neighbor's yard. (I didn't plant the ivy - it was there when we bought the house.)

Any chance we can see the wall? Many plants would drape over the wall. Why must it cling to the wall?

Here is the wall. Any other suggestions as to what I can plant to drape over it?

Near me, there are houses with that sort of wall (but higher) that use trailing phlox -- it's gorgeous in flower, and fine when not. To see what gets your eye, try searching for prostrate or trailing or weeping shrubs.

There is a lot going on here. Nice house by the way.

As you move to the right it is going to be more difficult to get something to drape over the wall because the ground level is dropping below the top of it. You are on a corner lot and obviously you can't block pedestrian and traffic sight lines. All plantings need to be short. Covering the wall solid is not really going to improve the curb appeal. There is nothing wrong with a little spill over here and there, but I don't see plantings that drape over or grow down the wall as a primary design concern or much of a help. There is nothing wrong with seeing some wall.

I think a better approach would be focusing on a landscape plan that fits your house and lot, the proverbial Curb Appeal, than focusing on the wall.

Oh, and what is that metal pole smack in the middle of the front window about?

I don’t understand your post Christopher. I suggested Cotoneaster dammeri. Then you said OP couldn’t use any Cotoneaster. And then you described your C dammeri doing just what the OP wants. Theres plenty of C dammeri growing down walls round here. It’s evergreen and doesn’t impede the pavements. Any stray bits are easy to remove.

However, having seen the wall it appears too low to accommodate either ivy or C dammeri. There’s a multitude of perennial alpines which would spill over it though. Aubretia, Arabis, Campanulas, creeping Phlox, Iberis, Saxifrages, Helianthemum, Ericas etc

Floral there are so many cotoneaster cultivars available in nurseries that looking for C. dammeri alone may lead to a wrong choice for the situation being described. Better said perhaps would have been, "it can't be just any variety of Cotoneaster, it needs to be 'Streib's Findling'." Even the small 'Tom Thumb' won't grow downwards and drape as well as the Findling.

Added: twice I sent clients out to buy the 'Streib's Findling'. One came home with 'Tom Thumb' which is deciduous. They now have a slope with half evergreen and half deciduous cotoneaster. The other came home with an I don't know what it is. The nursery told them it was the Findling. I suspect it is 'Coral Beauty' which is a much bigger selection and would never work along a wall and sidewalk like this.

Thank you for all the suggestions!

BTW the "pole" in the front yard is the old for sale sign. I shared an old photo of my home from when we first purchased it.

Also, I'd like to add that the reason I want plants on the wall isn't simply for curb appeal. I live in a highly populated area and want to deter people from sitting on the wall.

"I suspect it is 'Coral Beauty' which is a much bigger selection and would never work along a wall and sidewalk like this."

This "much bigger selection" only grows a couple of inches taller than the Strieb's and in my experience, they can be used almost interchangeably. Ditto with the straight species. These are used very commonly for a similar purpose in my area and in similarly tight quarters and they all work fine.

Tom Thumb is an entirely different species of cotoneaster and has a more shrubby rather than groundcover flat form.

gardengal either what is being sold in NC under those cultivar names are different selections altogether or have evolved over time via propagation in the nursery trade to new forms. That would be odd since a lot of it comes from Monrovia. The other option is the climate differences alters their growing habits drastically. I don't know the straight species C. dammeri, only know it via the 'Findling'.

I don't need to be right about anything here. I just think it is important should Bree decide on a cotoneaster to be very careful because it is a big genus and the plants size and height range is significant. I feel certain you know there are cotoneaster selections that would eat the sidewalk and half the road.

"I live in a highly populated area and want to deter people from sitting on the wall." This is a more unusual design request - plant ask in these forums which makes it all the more interesting.

Short, soft draping plants may not be the answer. You can sit on ivy, cotoneaster, phlox and many other short groundcover plants just fine. What you don't want is some thorny bush or any woody shrub poking you in the back and butt crack. You need to take away the back rest space.

I think you were on the right track with the roses. In winter yes they'd be ugly. I think roses are ugly shrubs in general. You can get thorns in evergreen though. Dwarf Burford Holly is the first that comes to mind. There are bound to be more.

What 7b plants for this corner lot say. "Get Off My Wall?

English ivy will easily grow up or down a wall. On the way down it has a lightly splashing waterfall effect produced from outward aiming plant tips. But in this situation, I think it would be too sunny for ivy to be happy. IMO, cotoneaster would be too beefy and require some wrangling down the road. A mat-forming plant like creeping phox, as suggested by Emmarene would look nice, do the job and take the conditions. Once the plant occupies the space, I don't think you'd have trouble with people sitting on the wall. I don't think you need defensive plants to get the job done.

OK, you guys have sold me creeping phlox it is!

Sweet potato vines will also drape nicely and look good next to phlox. They won’t look good in the winter, but with a few of them mixed in with the phlox you can rip them out for winter and replant in the spring. I drove by a house the other day that had three colors of phlox and sweet potatoes that looked amazing.

Ooooo adding sweet potato vines is SUCH a great idea!

This is Ontario zone 5