Renee - I LOVE Bridalwreath spirea and have three of them. I generally like things that have big, abundant displays of flowers - like the wisteria... Thyme - Yes, the wisteria was trained as a tree and I'm currently training a young Japanese wisteria to be a tree. The Chinese one has a trunk that splits in two just above the graft union so there are two poles that supported it when it was young. The Japanese one just has one pole. During the growing season, pruning is sometimes a daily task! And you have to be vigilant about root suckers - they need to be removed as soon as they appear. Also all seed pods are removed in late fall after the leaves drop and you can see the seedpods. I did a germination test one year and about 25% of the seeds germinated, so I remove the pods to prevent seedlings appearing. There are very detailed 'rules' for pruning wisteria - but I ignore them! What works for me is that everytime it puts out long whippy new growth, I cut it back to where I want the tree to grow - usually cut it back to 6-12" from the point of origin. One thing I have learned is that when I do that, about 10-14 days later, it produces a flower at that location! So the Chinese wisteria blooms all summer! Not profusely but it's nice to have it in bloom. It took about 5 years for it to produce its first big spring display but it did the summer bloom after pruning from the second year in the ground, so I knew it would eventually do a big bloom - May frosts sometimes prevents a spring bloom. We have long arm pruners to make it easy to prune the top of the tree. We'll likely keep it to the size it is now. This picture shows both wisteria trees. The Japanese one is what is on the pole at the near end of the bed. This is a pichure from a couple of years ago that shows the summer bloom - this is July 18 2007:

Game bird, Your list of 'requirements' is pretty exacting and there are not many vines that will perform that way on such a narrow trellis. Most vines I've grown have branched out just fine, although as Moni mentioned, sometimes you have to take some time early on to direct the plant's growth horizontally through the trellis, arbor or fence if it is growing strongly upright. Sometimes I spend a little time 'weaving' a young vine horizontally early in the season, but even when I don't, they eventually grow laterally on their own even if their original growth was mostly upward. Most vines climb as high as they can and then when they reach the top of their support, they go sideways, or droop and hang back down. Some will climb onto the roof if you don't prune them at the top. After all, they are programmed to grow upward and don't have a self-limiting gene that makes them grow X number of feet and then just stop growing. Asarina (vining snapdragon) is a slower grower but might not be vigorous enough to outcompete the mint or to give you the shade you're seeking. Black-eyed Susan Vine is a very lovely annual vine. I grow it on my garden fence and it seems to spread upward and sideways both, although sometimes I do take a few moments to weave it sideways to spread horizontally because it reseeds every year and doesn't always reseed evenly and I don't like big gaps in the wall of green. Both Cypress Vine and Cardinal Climber have a lighter, airy foliage. They'll climb as high as the nearest support but don't get terribly heavy due to their airy foliage. They'd only give you light to moderate shade though, not heavy shade. American Cross Vine might be a good contender. I have it in very poor clay soil and it climbs a 7' arbor and pretty much stays there. It gets only rainfall (as little as 18" or 20" in a drought year) and no irrigation, though, so that and the concrete-hard unimproved soil where it grows might be limiting its size here. It is semi-evergreen and hummingbirds love it. It is tougher than it sounds, though because it grows on an arbor with the yellow-flowered 'Flava' trumpet creeper vine, and the trumpet creeper vine does not outcompete it. Mina lobata is an annual vine with gorgeous flowers but is very vigorous. Mine climbed its trellis and then started climbing the wall of the house. If you grew it, you probably could prune it back weekly after it reached the top of the trellis, but it certainly wouldn't stop trying to climb higher. If those were my trellises, I'd likely plant moonflower vine because of the sheer beauty of the vine's leaves and flowers. It doesn't start blooming until mid-summer, but once it is blooming, we make it a point to be out in the yard when the lovely white flowers begin opening up in the evening. They all open up quickly and at about the same time and it is spectacular. I think it spreads out a little more horizontally on its own than its relative, the morning glory. It also has a lovely fragrance from the time it blooms in the evening until the next morning when the flowers close up. Other than cross vine, I don't know of any perennial vine that will remain the size you want without pruning and they likely will need some training to get them to spread outward and not so much upward. Some of the annual tropical vines like allamanda or mandeville would be lovely, but you'd have to plant new ones every year or dig them up and overwinter them in pots indoors. Dawn

Here's what the experts say: RICKY THOMPSON- Too many gardeners in east Texas perform "Crepe Murder," which is cutting crepe myrtles back to main trunks every fall. This causes the plant to have fewer blossoms in the spring, makes a strange looking if not downright ugly plant, and causes spindly new growth each spring. Like other trees, crepe myrtles should be pruned only by selectively cutting out whole branches to maintain the shape of the plant. If a plant is too big for the space, take it up and plant a more appropriate size. As for trees, no tree should be "topped," which is cutting back major limbs. Trees don't recover from this radical procedure and they never bush back out attractively. As with crepe myrtles, trees should be pruned by selectively cutting out limbs back to a major node. Trees should only be pruned to maintain shape (not size), to remove dead or diseased wood, or to keep limbs from contacting structures. LINDA C ASKEY - Southern Gardens ALIBIS FOR CREPE MURDER My neighbors pruned theirs. Improper pruning is a copycat crime. Each tree has a different form, and its role varies from one landscape to the next. Therefore, you need to figure out why you are pruning before you cut a branch. It's getting too big. If your tree is too tall, then you have the wrong one. Pruning to reduce its height will only create a maintenance battle that you will never win. Fortunately, even large crepe myrtles can be transplanted with success. Replace yours with a different kind of plant or a shorter selection of crepe myrtle. Acoma, Catawba, Cherokee, Comanche, Hopi, and Sioux are a few of the semidwarf forms that reach 8 to 14 feet in height in about 10 years. If you want a shrub, try Centennial, Victor, Prairie Lace, or Hope; these grow 3 to 4 feet tall. Natchez, Muskogee, Fantasy, Dallas Red, Byers Wonderful White, Watermelon Red, and Biloxi all grow at least 20 feet, so plant them where their height will be an asset. If I don't prune my tree, it won't bloom. Pruning will not inspire flowering; it will just bring the flowers down to where you can see them. Often, trees that fail to bloom are growing under too much shade, so move them to the sun. It looks scraggly. Crepe myrtles naturally send up new shoots called suckers from their base. While multitrunk trees are handsome, too many trunks can appear unkempt. Use hand clippers to cut off all unwanted suckers at the surface of the soil. Now is a good time. I'm just shaping it up. Don't cut to see over them, cut to see through them. Remove limbs from the inside of the tree, especially limbs that cross or hang so low that they hit you in the face. Remove entire limbs flush with the trunk as shown in Order in the Cut box. If you leave a stub, four or five new shoots will grow in place of the one you removed. MAKING REPARATIONS If your tree has been damaged by improper pruning, you can restore it. Cuts on young limbs (2 inches or less in diameter) can be repaired as shown in Reform School box. But larger limbs that have been lopped off or repeatedly pruned so that they have developed a knuckle need to be removed entirely. Trees that have been cut back to trunks 4 or 5 inches in diameter will never look natural again. These need to be cut flush to the ground so new trunks can be trained to replace the old. CLEMSON EXTENSION: The practice of chopping off the tops of crape myrtle has become very commonplace. Many people believe that it is required to promote flowering; some prune because the plant is too large for the space provided; others see their neighbors doing it and feel the need to follow suit. There are some instances in which heavy pruning is necessary, but light pruning is usually all that is needed. ELLEN BROWN: The number one most common reason Crepe Myrtles fail to bloom is improper pruning techniques (or a lack of pruning altogether). Crepe Myrtles bloom on the current season's growth. If they are pruned too late, all the new wood is removed and the flower buds never develop. Pruning should be done only after the tree flowers. You said your tree is very large so it may be older. Declining Crepe Myrtles can be revived by pruning. In the dormant season, some of the extraneous branches are cleaned up and removed, opening the interior of the plant to more sunlight and air circulation. Be careful not to commit "crepe murder." Just cut the branches to enhance the natural, overall appearance of the tree, don't whack them all back to one height. Each Saturday morning after football season ends, legions of bored men armed with saws and loppers emerge from their garages to commit "crepe murder." They needlessly reduce majestic crepe myrtles to ugly stumps-in many cases, ruining them forever. STEVE BENDER - Southern Living STOP DON'T CHOP In South Carolina, the Spartanburg Men's Garden Club is working to end the slaughter. Last year, one of its members, Henry Pittman, sent me a copy of the club's excellent brochure, "Crape Myrtles: Four Seasons of Beauty" (yes, I know-they spell it with an "a"). It covers all aspects of selecting, growing, and pruning crepe myrtles. We thought so highly of its advice that we visited Spartanburg to see firsthand what they were talking about so we could tell you. The objectives of pruning a crepe myrtle are to maintain its natural sculptural form, produce strong branches that hold flowers upright, and open up its center to reveal the smooth, multitoned bark that forms on mature trunks and branches. Cutting it back to thick stubs each year makes these goals impossible. A graceful tree quickly becomes a fencepost or hat rack. Pretty bark never appears. Each beheaded trunk grows a Medusa-like tangle of spindly whips too weak to hold up flowers. Decatur's annual spring sacrifice: improper crepe myrtle pruning 03/08/2006 Decatur Daily, The Martin Berket Return to Top **Jeff Sibley, Alumni associate professor of horticulture at AU, is a key source for this story.** Hoyt Williamson works at Limestone Correctional Facility, but the shocking truth is he sees more murderers running free in Decatur. That's right. Perfectly respectable, upstanding members of the community, maybe your neighbor, committing murder. Crepe murder, that is. The carnage is especially tragic in a city that has had aspirations of being "the crepe myrtle capital of the world." Late educator Frank Philpot envisioned the whole city splashed in crepe color all summer, and the annual fall sale he organized for some 15 years put more than 100,000 plants into the community. Crepe murder is a tongue-in-cheek term among horticulturists and savvy gardeners for the severe annual decapitation of crepe myrtles perpetrated in late winter by more than a few innocent home gardeners and landscapers. The result not only robs these tall bushes of their graceful form but also stimulates the growth of suckers, which can cause crowding and pest problems near the resulting stumps. "It's a really knurly kind of affect," said Williamson, who teaches horticulture at the prison for Calhoun Community College. "People commonly do it because it's easy to do. What typically happens is some varieties are so vigorous, you'll wind up with blooms so heavy and stems real long that don't have a lot of support at the crotch angle off the main trunk and they wind up breaking off." A better practice, Williamson said, is to have a range of about three feet within which you keep your crepe myrtles. If you want a 6-foot shrub, cut it to 3 feet the first year, then at 4 feet the next year, then 5 feet the next and then back to 3 feet the following year, and following the same pattern, he said. "By cutting back at various places, you end up invigorating the tree and giving it more strength," Williamson said. "What we find is if we don't do some pruning on them, you tend to get to the point where you get a very weak, spindly plant and a small amount of new growth that translates into not nearly as many blooms. By pruning to maintain size, we actually will improve the blooming of them." An even better way to control height, said Jeff Sibley, alumni professor at Auburn University, is to pick a variety that grows at the height you want. There are hundreds of varieties, he said. Varieties such as Natchez, Muskogee, Fantasy, Dallas Red, Byers, Wonderful White, Watermelon Red and Biloxie grow at least 20 feet, growers say. Acoma, Catawba, Cherokee, Comanche, Hopi and Sioux reach 8 to 14 feet. Centennial, Victor, Prairie Lace or Hope grow to 3 or 4 feet. Whacking a 20- to 30-foot tree back to 3-foot trunks ignores some of the plant's most appealing aspects, such as shape and peeling bark, Sibley said. For a municipality, hard pruning may be necessary for safety reasons along a right of way. But it also can lead to weak limbs and health problems that cut short the plant's life. Crepe myrtles bloom on new wood, Sibley said. By pruning limbs no smaller than a pencil, the plant stays healthy and still puts out shoots that produce lots of blooms. To trim into a tree form, horticulturists advise, remove limbs from inside the tree that cross or hang so low they hit you in the face. Remove the entire limb flush with the trunk. If you leave a stub, new shoots will grow. ++++++++++++ And on and on....

Our crossvine grows along a wooden fence. We have not done anything to support it yet; it's been in the ground at least 4 years. I am thinking that it needs some support to train it more like we want it, and to encourage it to cover more of the fence. We might tack a few wires to the fence slats and parallel to the ground, and thread the runners around the wires. But no decision yet. Like was mentioned above, our crossvine has twined into a nearby plant, in our case a wax myrtle. We'll probably remove those runners sometime this spring. But they don't seem to be doing harm, and lend an odd but pretty look to the w.m. when blooming - like little Christmas lights. Sorry, can not advise about attaching a trellis to a brick wall.