Climbers to make an ugly house beautiful!

Hi all,

I've just bought my first house, which I'm really pleased with, but part of the reason the price was right is because previous owners decided to stone clad the front of the house! Its quite sad as all other house on the road are in a lovely beige brick. Anyway, we have decided that the best and cheapest option to brighten up and improve the house would be to paint the cladding more in keeping with the other houses, and then grow some climbing plants across it to make it look different in a good way.

The wall we would like to grow up is west facing, I'm unsure about the soil quality (front garden currently under a good few inches of nasty gravel, which will be removed once we have finished inside!) and am a total beginner, so something fairly easy would be good. I've been told ivy can get through the brickwork and destroy the wall, I don't think it would get through the cladding but I'd rather not find out, so we were planning on putting up some trellis for plants to climb rather than the wall itself.

We would like it to be evergreen, but colours etc don't matter, does anyone have any good tips on what climbers might mix well and make the house look attractive, and if so where should I buy them/when should I plant etc?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

I agree about the NO IVY rule! not sure if it'd get through cladding, but you wouldn't want to risk it if you own the house, rather than rent.

I'm a novice gardener, so I don't really know about soil types, but I always think Wisteria looks gorgeous on a house and you can get different colours these days! It's not evergreen though, I dont think. Nor is "mile a minute" clematis, but they have lovely pink flowers and reddy coloured leaves.

Good luck, :gnthb:

 

There's always Virginia Creeper which grows quite fast, doesn't damage brickwork like Ivy does and looks beautiful in Autumn when the leaves turn a wonderful shade of red...but then they all fall off until Spring!

You could try growing something like Pyrocantha up the side of the house, but it won't cover it, at least not in a short space of time. Passion Flower is also (mainly) evergreen, unless we have a harsh winter when it will lose it's leaves.

How big is the house and how much of the walls do you want covering?