Just visiting over here! The biggest problem with vines and this fence material is support. Vines that would adhere like English ivy and Ficus repens, are aggressive and a huge mistake. Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) is manageable. So it boils down to adding support for the twinning types, such as trellises. I tried attaching chicken wire with concrete nails for clematis - worked great until pruning time! You might looks at sub-shrubs that accept espaliering. Wire guides can be attached to concrete nails.

For those who want specifics, here is the response I wrote to an article published several weeks ago by the L.A. Times, an article focusing on water usage in L.A. County: While the article's title is accurate vis-à-vis the facts presented, the information is misleading because the water problem is a statewide one--L.A.'s water sources are principally non-L.A., and, because the state water sources are statewide (and beyond), they are impacted by statewide use, not just L.A. use. Yes, just in L.A., the principal use of water is by single-family households; but this approaches insignificance when you consider that, statewide, approximately 50% of the total water used in the state is for environmental uses, 40% of the total water used is consumed by Agriculture (these figures are given in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California). The remaining 10% is for "all other uses." It is patently unfair that the residential water user is made the whipping boy during droughts when all the reasonable savings a committed homeowner could conceivably make would make no effective difference in relieving the drought. Using figures supplied by the EPA for the nation as a whole, I've been checking some other figures. The "average household" uses (not wastes, but uses) 320 gallons of water a day, which is 116,800 gallons per year (in a 365 day year). They specify that 30% of this represents the household's "outdoor uses." The late Sunset Blvd. incident wasted approximately 20 million gallons. That would have been full water usage by one average household for over 171 years. And yet the water department officials scoff at the significance of this incident (while still scolding residential water users about their habits). Considering outdoor usage by the average household (the 30% mentioned above), the EPA says "as much as" 50% of this is wasted. That would be 48 gallons a day of wastage by the average household, which, in a year, would be 17,520. Let's say that our average householder managed not to waste that 17,520. That's very nice; but it would take over 1141 householders saving that amount to equal what was wasted in the Sunset Blvd. incident. To put it another way, the Sunset Blvd. incident wasted a whole year of strenuous efforts at conservation by over 1141 households. The EPA also supplies a pie chart, dated 2005, of "freshwater withdrawals." Here are the percentages of water usage, in descending order: Thermoelectric power, 41.5% Irrigation, 37% Domestic, 8.5% "Other Publicly Supplied Users," 5.4% Industrial, 5% Aquaculture, 2.6% (They note that mining and livestock account for 1%, which I suppose is part of the Industrial category.) Look at the above, and note that the top two line-items, Thermoelectric Power and Irrigation, account for no less than 76.5% of water usage. Even if one would say that the water used by Thermoelectric Power is then still available afterwards for other uses and so eliminate that category, Domestic (household) use still trails far behind the "final" (i.e., not available for other uses afterwards) usages for combined Irrigation, "Other," Industrial, and Aquaculture. And yet, it is us, "Domestic," with our little 8.5%, which is made the whipping boy during a drought. The Times article about L.A. water use perpetuates a false and unfair perception. Please publish an article presenting a full and more accurate picture. Thank you.

I have two that do really well here in the HOT, dry summers we have in Fresno: Easy Liven' from Weeks Roses. Heat brings out the scent... which is wonderful. This is Fired Up from Star Roses and Plants. The color range on any rose is as shown.... and more I have a whole line of them across the back garden and they light up what would be a rather dark space .

For something a little different, try Salvia microphylla 'San Carlos Festival'. We have 3 for several years that are 3-4' tall and at least 5' in diameter. The blooms remind me of large hot-pink/magenta jelly beans covering the shrub most of the year. In fact, I don't know if I've ever seen it out of bloom. We're inland with hot summers and it does well in afternoon sun but prefers morning sun. It's one of my favorites.