Wow, thank you so much for suggestions/questions! I didn't want to bore with excruciating details, but I guess some details would have helped. The house (a row home, which means that it is attached on either side to other houses) has southern exposure on one side, northern on the other. The side with southern exposure is all concrete and unsightly carport (one that obstructs the bottom half of our view from the living room window), but also houses a small patio that the woman who owned the house before us filled with flowers. Taking out the concrete to put in a smallish garden on that side is not in our budget at this point, so we're really just talking planters on patio and possibly something (ivy?) to cover the top of that unsightly carport. The side of the house with northern exposure has a small garden with some roses, an obscene amount of cornflowers, three small struggling azaleas, a small and grumpy rhododendron that begrudgingly bloomed two wilted flowers so far this year, tulips and crocuses in the spring, large bald patches where flowers used to be, a holy on the right, a gorgeous maple tree on the left, moss where grass should be, and a well-established network of ant colonies that even our most sustained murderous rampage failed to eliminate. I inherited this garden two years ago when we bought the house, and by then it had already spent a few years with an owner who was just looking to flip for profit and didn't do any maintenance. I'm a complete novice at gardening, but the garden deserves some attention and desperately needs the overhaul. I am told that you don't need to dig too deep in this area before you hit clay. Because we are in Vancouver (Port Coquitlam, to be exact), we get lots and lots of rain. I tried growing rosemary in a pot, but it got drowned out after the first stretch of summer rain. So did the basil, which I'm now growing indoors. We were planning extensive work on the garden, but that's still at least three or four years off (kitchen remodel will come first) so I thought I'd roll up my sleeves and just work with what I have for now. I will eventually want to sit down and do the whole landscape design (topiary, stone terrace, terracotta, etc.), but for now am just wondering what plants would even survive in these conditions. What I really need is to have a gardening expert come move in with us for a week so that s/he could tell me what to do, how to do it, and how to transform this sad and wilted garden into my very own Cinque Terre. Though it might just be easier and cheaper to move to Italy. ;-)

Mark:Huge figs does not mean tasty figs. No Offense but usally the smallest size figs are the best tasting. Usually the tree that form embrio very early will be the first to get ripe. If the Panache and Blue Giant has enough time to ripe fruits then they are ok for our area. You are now in position to tell us. It is true some cultivar are late in forming fruits and that is a minus in zone 6 and colder.I do have a good number of young trees wich are late in forming fruits but i blame it on being too young. Only growing we gain experience.Peace

I believe Dutchman's Pipe may fit the bill, from what I've heard it is evergreen. The "flowers" are not really flowers, though, they look like odd greenish pipes hence the name. I doubt you can find an evergreen flowering vine in this area.

Excellent to hear because that is exactly what we already decided to buy. We're gonna buy enough to last a couple of seasons and probably use it all summer. Hopefully it will help us with the bugs but we are especially hoping it can give our plants just a little protection because it can be so hot here in July and August. Tomato plants and some others often appear Sun damaged but maybe not this year! BTW, I've never germinated seeds before and am having surprisingly good luck so far. "Asparagus Beans" are amazing! I just put them in last Monday late just before bedtime and they are easily 4 times the size of any other sprout with about 3 inches of roots out the bottom of the seed tray. I'm gonna try transplanting them into cups later tonight or tomorrow. They want to live!!! :)