Ideal Plant To Grown Along Top Of Fence

Due to constant high winds in the winters we have had to reduce the height of our dividing rear garden fence to about 5' (it was originally 6') and now when out in the garden I feel that my privacy is exposed.

Can anyone tell of a suitable plant that could be grown up the fence and along the top in order to give us a few more inches of privacy, something quick growing if possible.

I'm not a great gardener and all I can think of is Ivy but I'm sure there's other plants.

Only drawback is that if it has to be grown from in the ground it will have to be a plant that is not harmful to our two pet bunnies. I was thinking that if the plant is dangerous for them, could it be grown from a wall basket part way up the fence?

Many thanks.

Reply to
KarinB
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Moonflowers are what I use in the summer to extend fence height. Lovely large fragrant flowers at night, large leaves fast growing and easy to train horizontally on a string or wire. I've had them run twenty feet and more.

I've grown them in large pots as well.

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Charlie

Reply to
Charlie

Honey suckle grows well in Ohio and grows wild in Tennessee. It grows fast and thick during the summer months and draws bees and hummingbirds. The house where I grew up had a honey suckle bush next to the bathroom window and it gave the bathroom a nice fragrance. The yellow flowers seem to have a stronger aroma. For some reason robins liked to build a nest there every year and we had a close up view of the progress. Do you need the extra privacy in the winter?

Reply to
Phisherman

Great choice for some places but if you're including Lonicera species honeysuckle, it looks like Tennessee might be TOO friendly to honeysucikles. If you're talking "honey suckle bush" that's not going to cling to a fence, but the Tennessee native honeysuckle bush you refer to, Diervilla lonicera, yes, very nice shrub, not a fence climber however, very like the twinberry bush ( Lonicera involucrata), both great shrubs though the flowers are tiny (berries and bracts are showier than blooms).

It might indeed be a lot easier to hide a fence with thick shrubs than with slender vines, but vines can be good in a mix, but possibly NOT honeysuckle vines if living somewhere like Tennessee.

Many Lonicera introductions have proven invasive. For Tennessee in particular, Lonecera maackii, L. fragrantisima, L. morrowi, L. x bella 'Zabel,' all cultivars of L. salicana, L. tatarica, L. xylosteum, L. japonica -- some of these alas the easiest obtainable in nurseries, but they're on the Tennessee list of "extreme" dangers among exotic invasives. None of these should be planted and if encountered should be dug out and destroyed, despite their incredible beauty. (I've never been able to destroy my own L. japonica; mine are purpurea cultivars not noted for invasiveness in my particular region, so I indulge myself keeping them.)

Possibly some North American NATIVE Lonicera species would be okay, like L. sempervirens (wlhich can be as showy as the invasive japonica), or L. candensis (but that one's another bush, not a vine). But Tennessee's Exotic Pest Council recommends the following vines, natives of Tennesee, as preferable to any Lonerica species. A couple of these (like the crossvine or trumpet creeper or virginia creeper) are as aggressive as any vining lonerica, but being native, not a threat:

Dutchman's pipe (Aristolochia macrophylla), crossvine (Bignonia capreolata), trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans), leatherflower (Clematis viorna), virgin's bower (Clematis virginiana), climbing hydrangea J(Decumaria barbara), Carolina jasmine (Gelsemium sempervirens), Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquifolia), Atlantic wisteria (Wisteria farutescens). If there's not a nursery nearby attending to the needs of native plant gardening, then contact a local native plant society, most such societies do some salvage, or have someone involved who is providing native plants started from seed gathering.

Our own native plant society here on Puget Sound has GREAT field trips, super events, and if you volunteer during plant salvages you can keep some, usually taken from ground slated for bulldozing and construction. Every state seems to have such an organization with numerous chapters, & Tennessee's has a first-contact at

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-- there'll be similar for Ohio, or wherever anyone's from, seems to be pretty good activist coverage throughout the nation.

-paghat the ratgirl

Reply to
paghat

I tried it last year and it did just about nothin' not even a flower. Grew about 6" high and quit. Maybe it was somethin' I said.

Reply to
Billy

You have to reduce the height of the fence due to high wind - presumably the fence is not holding up too well. But you are going to growing things up it to give privacy, so that you will not have reduced the area exposed to the wind much at all, maybe even increasing it unless you are very regular with pruning. On top of this the fence will have to take the weight of whatever you grow on it , possibly including hanging baskets both hanging off the same side. Incidentaly baskets dry out very quickly in windy exposed positions and unless you are going to water them regularly you may have trouble getting anything to grow.

Have you considered that remedy could be worse than the current problem? Perhaps it would be easier in the long run to just strengthen the existing fence.

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

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