Help Brightening Up A Fence

Hi there�. I am just about to start tidying up some communal land I share with two neighbours and was hoping for some help please.

We have a fence which runs along where we have some car park spaces for visitors. The fence is about 15mtr�s in length and is actually our neighbours so unfortunately we can�t touch it and it really is an eyesore.

I initially wanted to cut back the concrete on our side of the fence so that I could plant a hedge running the length of the fence, however this would mean me when visitors came around the cars would slightly encroach on our private drives and one of the neighbours I share the land with would not agree to it.

My next idea is to fix a lattice fence to our side of the fence posts and dig sections of the concrete up, enough to plant climbing plants that will climb around the lattice.

Has anyone any good ideas on what to plant. I�m not that great at gardening (yet ) so I would like something quite hardy. I would also like at least a few evergreens so there is some coverage and colour all year round.

It�s quite a sunny location, so they will get sun for at least part of the day. Not sure on the soil quality until I start digging up the concrete.

 

you could plant some ivy that would give you a green all year cover..i bought a nice ivy myself last week called paddys pride the leaves on it are beautifull..i also have some of the common ones as well including a russian vine which grow like crazy...then you could plant some jasmines or some honeysuckle...some of the clematis flower in the autumn and that would give you late colour...some of the experts will probably answer this post as i am use less with the latin names...

 

you could also put some flower pouches on it for the summer with some trailing plants in to give you instant cover while you wait for things to grow..that would brighten it up for now...

 

For planting in concrete all you need to do is crack it a bit and put in some Buddlia. Its just the sort of situation they love and they can be trained back against the wall or a trellis so's not to limit the path width too much.

 

Cheers for that Wildflower... will poss give honeysuckle or jasmines a try...

I'm v.interested with Buddlia idea frogesque.. didn't think they would be suitable... if your putting them into cracks how would you plant them properly.. are you saying I should just plant seeds into the cracks?

 

Yep, you can put a few seeds in the cracks and they should grow OK. They seem to do it naturally on derelict building sites or in old walls. I rescued one from simmilar when I was in N. Ireland. Thinking about it another option might be to drill 20mm or bigger holes through the concrete (need a big hammer drill and a carbide tipped bit) then plant seedlings in the holes. They just seem to love poor gritty soil with a lot of lime in it.

 

Looks like you could do the same with a flowering currant - see Roders' pic!! Can't remember which thread - can anyone remember?

 

cool will get some seeds then.. cheers.

was just worrying about the sun the plants will get... had it in my head because the area in front of the fence always gets lots of sun that the fence did.. Actually looking at it yesterday I noticed that it must be north facing as the sun was behind the fence so anything I plant on the fence is going to be in the shade..

The lattice is going to be built higher that the fence so when the plants get to the top they'll be able to get sunshne, also when the suns above the fence it does get sun on it so there is sun on it for part of the day.

Do you thing this will be a problem for any of the plants we have discussed?