If the Russian vine let's everything else thrive. It really is a monster!
I would never use it myself but in the OP's case, given that she's looking
into someone else's garden from her own, I think using one of those would
give nothing but trouble to both parties. He won't be too happy when his
new sapling hedging is eaten by the Russian vine......

--
Sacha

I planted the Russian vine in the least favourable position of all the
climbers. The barn faces South so the sun lovers are all on that side. The
passion flower is loving it's position. The Russian vine was relegated to
the North facing side of the building. It put on quite a spurt initially
reaching the top of the wall (about 20 feet) then strangely has stopped
growing with a number of it's leaves turning rust or red coloured. It is
almost as though it has decided it has grown enough for one year or that
Autumn is here so time to throttle back.

The roof of the barn (what remains of it) is huge and very steep, covered in
rusty corrugated tin sheets. I'm hoping that at least one of the climbers
will be able to tolerate growing over them without baking in the Summer sun.
The rusty tin sheets are really ugly. I may post a photo some time - the
barn is quite a monstrosity at the moment. The weathered stone walls and
ancient wooden doors / windows have charm but the tin sheets completely
spoil the look. Needless to say the barn is beyond renovation. It would cost
a fortune to do anything with and is not financially viable. So a "romantic
ruin" is it's only future as it slowly crumbles away.

David.