Hi Misty,

There are so few posts around here anymore that I rarely check in here anymore, so I just saw your post yesterday--when I didn't have time to reply!

I'm not sure you're gonna like my answer, though! The only vine I know of that's evergreen is Hedera helix, which is the "Ivy League" ivy! Common name, English ivy! But I think it might need more shade than you're describing--especially in winter since it's evergreen and too much sun can burn the leaves--although you don't have "mile high sun" anymore there in Kansas, so possibly it would work! But! This stuff is invasive, and it "attaches" itself to whatever it's growing up, so it can "damage" the siding on buildings, and even if it's growing up brick, once it "gets attached" it can be impossible to ever remove "all" of it again if you ever wanted to!

Also, I really don't think it would do well, or probably even survive, in a pot--although I don't think any vine would do well in a pot since they grow "so big," and the soil and moisture in just a pot wouldn't be able to support the whole thing--not to mention the problem with freezing and thawing over and over in winter. Unless your soil has "big" rocks in it, you should be able to solve the "planting problem" by using a spading fork to help get you through the "rocky soil."

Otherwise any of the other deciduous vines would work without having the "winter sun" problem, but ALL the vines I know of (and sold at the garden centers where I worked) are invasive to at least some extent--most of them pretty badly! If there's something you're considering I can probably give you the pros and cons of it--tho it might take me a few days to find your post!

I just noticed that you said you want to grow it up a trellis, but all of the vines I know of will go WAY past a trellis very quickly and you'd be constantly trying to keep it cut back enough that it's not going All Over The Place! If you want it on a trellis the "advantage" of English ivy would be that it grows more slowly than the other deciduous vines--so it would at least be "easier" to control!!

All the deciduous vines I know of get their new growth each year out of the old vines--that's actually part of the Invasive Problem!

You might think about trying a climbing rose--tho you'd need to "keep that in bounds" too, or find a clematis you really love and after several years the vine itself will grow thick enough to give you at least some screening, but certainly not complete. But at least those things aren't invasive like the other vines!

Like I said at the beginning, I don't think you'll like my answer, but better to know what you're getting into in the beginning--before you create a monster!

I hope all is going well for you "back there!"

Skybird

W 10.09.24 @ 2030 MDT

You know, I was just thinking about a climbing rose! Also thought about Clematis, although I didn't have any luck growing the one I had in Colorado. Maybe Clematis armandii if I can find it.

Do you know anything about Major Wheeler honeysuckle? Someone in the Kansas gardening group suggested that. It sounds like a nice looking plant so I may consider that. Winter Jasmine is interesting but might take more work to get it to trellis.

So where I park my car can be seen from my window. So I decided to put a trellis in front of it and grow a vining plant over it. I know I will need to control whatever I grow there so it doesn't get out of hand. Or it just might be easier to plant a tall shrub instead! But whatever I plant I may need to chisel through the gravelly soil as well as amend it in order to plant directly in the ground. Doable but just trying to avoid that if I can! Maybe a raised planter with open bottom so roots can spread down into the soil.

Good to hear from you and always enjoy your gardening thoughts!

Hi Misty,

The honeysuckles I personally know about are very invasive, but there are lots of species so I checked out the cultivar you’re considering and, apparently it’s not too bad! It’s Lonicera sempervirens if you want to look up more info—but I found a really good site, with the link below!

This cultivar would most definitely attract hummingbirds, so that’s a definite pro! After a couple years it will definitely start to grow beyond any trellis, but you seem to be prepared to keep it in bounds, so then that wouldn’t be a problem! If you decide to get one, what I’d recommend for “pruning” is that after a couple years when it’s getting the trellis pretty much covered, shortly after it finishes blooming pick about a third of all the stems and cut them back “severely,” almost all the way to the ground would be good! Then the next year leave those vines grow after blooming but cut back another third of the ones that you left grow the previous year. If you keep switching out the individual vines that you’re cutting down you’ll keep a “fresh looking” vine that should be staying mostly “in bounds.” [Having said that, I don’t know for sure just how things grow in eastern Kansas, so it would kind of be a trial and error situation for you for the first several years! But cutting honeysuckle vines “all the way down” won’t do anything to hurt them—it’ll just “refresh” them—and will probably cause them to grow “thicker” at the base!]

Here’s a link to a University of Missouri site with lots of good honeysuckle info, and the growing conditions should be pretty close to yours—I believe! Info about L. sempervirens is in the sixth paragraph!

https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2016/5/Honeysuckles_For_Better_or_For_Worse/

Whatever you decide to plant, I still seriously recommend “doing the work now,” and dig a “real hole” in the “real ground” to plant it in. I believe it will save you various problems down the road! Even if you were to cut the bottom out of something and plant it in that, you’d still need to thoroughly “loosen up” the soil below it to allow the roots easy access to the garden soil or you’d risk the roots getting down to the “top of the soil” and just stopping there—soil stratification isn’t good for anything. And you’d still have the problem of the soil in the “above ground container” repeatedly freezing and thawing over winter, possibly damaging those roots—no way to know for sure, but if it happened you might lose the plant or, at best, need to start all over and replant it in the ground at that point. Just a heads up! If you do decide to plant directly in the ground, very deeply SLOW soak the soil in that area—at least 12-18” deep—and then let it sit for 24-48 hours before you start digging. That should greatly help to loosen it up to make it easier to “get thru the rocks!”

Please stay away from Japanese honeysuckle, L. japonica. It has a sweet fragrance so it’s been wildly popular for years, but it suckers and spreads at the base, and it reseeds “prolifically” when birds eat the berries and drop the seeds all over creation! I don’t know if it’s ever been officially declared a noxious weed in any state, but it probably should be!

And I very seriously recommend you don’t decide on a honeysuckle bush! When I moved into this house there was a “dead shrub” in one end of the bed across the entire back of my back yard. All the rest of that entire “bed” was covered in god-awful landscape fabric and ROCKS, and as I started to move the rocks—and fabric—off of the soil so I could plant perennials I started piling the rock on top of the “dead shrub” until I could figure out how to get rid of it! Eventually I wound up with a big pile of “butter rock” on top of the “shrub” that was at least 3’ high! Then we got some “rains!” You’ve lived here so you know what I mean! And before long I saw “green leaves” coming out of the top of the rock pile! I moved enough of the rocks to the side so I could see what was going on—and my Dead Shrub was GROWING! I found somebody to come and take the rock—and it turned out that I had TWO “live” honeysuckle bushes growing there! I swear to god there was no living thing there when I started piling rock there—just dead stumps! I believe one of them was the “original” plant that had been planted there, and the other was from a sucker that had grown off of the original one! I decided I wanted to keep one of them—the one that was a sucker and was closer to the fence, to “provide some privacy” from the neighbors, but killing the one I wanted to kill turned out to be quite an ordeal! Being buried under rock for months obviously didn’t do it, and when I sprayed it with herbicide it just “set it back” a little! I finally sprayed it again and then put a black nursery pot over it and “steamed” it for the rest of that summer—and the next spring it was actually dead! Since I wanted to still plant perennials around the one I left grow, the next year I wound up cutting all the lower branches off—up to almost the top of the fence, so I had the entire planting area around it on the “bottom,” but the top “spread out” enough to give me some privacy at that part of the fence! But! Ever since then—almost twenty years now!—every spring I spend over a month pulling and cutting off dozens and dozens of suckers that keep coming up around the base of the remaining bush! It’s a real nuisance, when there are Other Things to be doing in spring! [I’m sure you’ve been to a swap at my house, so maybe you remember the bed across the back that I’m talking about—and what I refer to as my “bonsaid honeysuckle bush!”] But now, since the neighbor has built a shed right there I don’t need it for “privacy” anymore—but I keep it “for the birds” since I don’t have any deciduous trees in my yard—and one of the two upright junipers I did have “fell down” this spring after some soaking rains, so I only have the one juniper for the birds anymore—so the nuisance honeysuckle will get to stay!

But honeysuckle, or almost any other bush, will inevitably get WAY bigger—both taller and wider—than you “expect” it to when you buy “a cute little bush in a cute little pot” and plant it—and don’t believe the labels! So I don’t think you’ll find a bush you’re happy with in that area that won’t get even more Out Of Bounds than the honeysuckle you’re thinking of—or a rose (remember, roses BITE!), or a clematis! If you should consider clematis more, the only invasive one I know about personally is sweet autumn, C. terniflora, it has small white flowers and apparently is almost as bad a kudzu according to some people! Two others, that I’ve never heard of, are, traveler’s joy C. vitalba, and orange-peel clematis, C. orientalis. I guess a couple of these three have been declared noxious weeds in some places! As far as I know any other of the many, many clematis varieties is just “pretty” and not going to try to take over the Earth! [A favorite of mine is Henryi which has huge white flowers with dark anthers—and there’s another huge white one with white anthers that I love too, but I can’t remember the species right now! I still want to have one of those two growing in my yard at some point!]

If you do finally decide on a clematis, I wouldn’t worry about having had trouble growing it here in Colorado! You have very, very different weather and growing conditions now and I sure would try it again if that’s what you want to do! And any problem you had out here could possibly have even been very “localized” to the specific place you planted it! Try again if that’s what you want to do!

Here’s a link to another Missouri site with L. sempervirens info. It does say that it has “naturalized” in places—and that’s a “nice way” to say that it’s “semi-invasive,” but I really didn’t find enough info like that to “worry too much” about it!

https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=d990

Please come back to this thread and let us know what you decided—when you finally make that decision!

Skybird

TH 10.10.24 @ 1435 MDT