Virginia creeper is very invasive and I have to dig it out of my veggie garden every year (I believe the birds plant it there) but I love it anyway. Hey, you gotta love any plant that will grow in red clay! Jenniemarie, You really limit what we can suggest to almost nothing if you truly don't want anything that might be messy or attract bees and insects. Most vines are inherently messy to some extent since for most of them, there is a biological need to flower and produce seed (often in the form of fruit). While I certainly wouldn't plant grapevines, for example, on a pergola that will be shading a seating area or a walkway, there are lots of other plants I'd plant...and I'd just deal with their occasional messiness by sweeping periodically. American Crossvine is a perennial plant that has lovely flowers but is not excessively messy. It is semi-evergreen here in southern OK. I don't know if it holds its leaves most of the winter elsewhere in the state. I have coral honeysuckle on an arbor that serves as an entryway to my veggie garden, and even though it attracts tons of hummingbirds and bees, no one has ever been stung by any of those bees and people go in and out through that arbor all day long. Many of the vines we could suggest may be invasive, especially if you have high-quality sandy loam soil. Some vines, like wisteria and trumpet creeper, tend to be invasive everywhere--even in very poor soil. Clematis might be a good choice, but I don't grow it here so that's just a guess on my part. I have grown Sweet Autumn Clematis and it is lovely and flowers heavily in August. For me it was not invasive, but when it does drop the flowers in August or September it is very messy and you'd be sweeping them up daily for a while. About one year in ten it is totally denuded by blister beetles, but 1 year out of 10 isn't bad. You might want to experiment with an annual vine like morning glory or moonflowers. The moonflowers only bloom at night (unfurling their gorgeous flowers between 7 and 8 p.m., roughly, in the summertime) and close up in the morning, so that's one possibility and they are not terrible messy compared to some flowering vines. Morning glories open up their flowers in the morning and close later in the day, so if you'll be using the pergola mostly in the afternoon and evening, they might be a good option for you. Both morning glories and moonflowers are in the ipomoea family and do tend to reseed a lot, but the seedings are easy to pull early in the season or if they fall into grassy areas, you just mow them down. You also could use climbing roses that are spring bloomers. You'd have to deal with the roses in spring, but the rest of the year there wouldn't be any flowers to attract insects. There are lots more options but they pretty much all flower, except for something like English Ivy, Boston Ivy or Persian Ivy and any of those can be invasive just like Virginia Creeper. Dawn

Go find out what's the best paint/stain for redwood. I do know that redwood bleeds through regular opaque stains. Cabot opaque stains can be tinted to Ben Moore colors but if you want to leave it natural, you'll probably want a clear coat of some kind. Do not trust any information you get about these stains from Lowe's or Home Depot, even though they sell it, the person helping you isn't always familiar with the product. Find yourself a stand- alone paint store that sells decking and siding stain. PS. Thompson's Weather Shield isn't the right product for this.

IMO adding another wood structure to your backyard, especially in front of the large window is a big mistake. Your backyard will look like a shed showroom. You might want to consider a retractable awning over the hot tub that can be rolled out when needed, if needed. If you go with the pergola, it certainly should match the current patio roof. Patio Pergola

If the back end of the pergola is resting on the roof, there is danger of damming roof drainage, which would cause water to run under the shingles. You should explore if this is the case. Based on the area shown in the photo, I'd be inclined to pave the whole area (everything from walk on back). It looks just right for a couple of chairs and container plants. IMO, there is not any place good for bed against the house, unless the walk were moved away from the building, but I like that less based on what I see here.