Best Climber!

Afternoon,

I have just moved into a new house in the north west of England, and my backyard is (basically) a concrete slab surrounded by walls! The joys of terraced housing!

I've built my own planter boxes around the entire of the garden. I plan to have fruit bushes down one side, and I want the other side to essentially be green / bushy, with flowers etc.

I want a climbing plant that can grow to cover the wall, that isn't poisonous (I have chickens!) and is also very easy to maintain (my fingers are not that green).

Any ideas?

I know ivy goes mad, and is dead easy, but it's poisonous!

 

So many climbers to choose from! What's the aspect like? Does the wall gets sun, shade or partial shade.

I have tried lots of climbers in my garden - I really like potato vine and honeysuckle and passion flower. But not all are evergreeen which is another consideration if you want leafy cover in the winter.

Sun or shade?

 

I like a jasmine officinale, myself. Vigorous, fab perfume and partly evergreen. Ideally, a mix of clematis, jasmine, honeysuckle with something evergreen.

When I was choosing climbers I read a book by Stefan Buzcacki called Top 100 Climbers (or something). He recommended jasminum beesianum,which i duly planted. It is IMO among the 100 Worst Climbers - tiny flowers, no scent, needs to twine, boring foliage. So don't get that one.

 

Clematis montana is easy to grow and will quickly cover a large area ( also very easy to propagate so buy one plant and take a load of cuttings in the first year ).

Solanum crispum Glasnevin ( Chilean potato vine ) is a small leaved evergreen stunner if the aspect is sunny, but you will need to tie it in as it can get very high and leggy, and so prone to wind damage.

 

I love Actindia kolomikta, I have successfully grown this in containers and it is moderately vigorous climber that just needs to be fed through some trellis or the like. Lovely attractive leaves; looks like they've been dipped in white and pink paint.

The Chocolate vine is also worth considering, much more vigorous but easily pruned.

There are many varieties of Clematis worth considering too, perhaps the ones that need just a tidy up in the spring or completely cutting back to ground level would easier to look after?

There are also shrubs that can be trained against a wall; Pyracantha is a favourite or how about Magnolia Grandiflora which is evergreen and has huge scented flowers when established...

 

Thanks for the replies!

The garden is east facing, and I'd like the climbers to grow up the surrounding yard wall / on a trellis.

It really needs to be fairly easy and hardy!! We've had awful wind recently, and I don't know if that's common here in the North West.

Clematis does look and sound like a good idea, and was something that I was considering.

Although I'd love something evergreen! I really hate looking out into my hard and seeing just red bricks and concrete.

 

Hello tahsocks and welcome to GC.

I would keep well clear of any of the potato vines as they are of the Solanum family (nightshade) and the berries are poisonous.