On Tue, 03 Jun 2003 14:18:57 +0100, andrewpreece wrote:
snip
I have a wall to cover, south facing, about 4-5 feet high,
and about 22 feet long. I may raise the height to 6 feet
with some trellis. I wish to cloak it in evergreen
stuff. I have bought a "Mermaid" rose, and a Ceanothus,
"Autumnal Blue".
prune
but is it daft to try and interweave plants like this?
Anyone done someting similar?

Andy,

I have approx. the same length of trellis in my garden as your wall, and I
have got approx. 3 climbing plants for every 6 feet of trellis. This was
mostly dictated by the fact that we transplanted a serious quantity of
climbing plants when we moved house, and this trellis was the only place
to put them! Possibly too many, but I'll worry about that later.

So yes, all the plants on my trellis are interwoven - over, under,
through, around and about each other, it looks very pretty.

You need to plant you rose & ceanothus a reasonable distance apart to
avoid competition of the roots, but as they grow wider, you can train them
together so that they interweave. If I were you, I'd go for several more
plants as well. Two plants will not fill out and give good coverage for
several years, even then it will be patchy. Remember that the 10x10 for
the ceanothus and 30 x 20 for the rose are probably maximums, and no plant
is solid! The rose may eventually reach 30x20, but don't forget it
consists of lots of thin branches, so you will have gaps.

You may want to consider the climbing hydrangea (evergreen, self-clinging,
flowers in spring, very easy), ivy (even easier and evergreen), another
rose or 2 for summer interest (not evergreen), clematis for spring (not
evergreen), honeysuckle (not reliably evergreen), solanum crispum, golden
hop (dies back in winter), jasmines, passion flower just to name what is
in my garden.

Regards,

Sarah