Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
"Jeff Layman" writes:

Good list. To those stated I would add Akebia quinata or
trifoliata. They would do pretty well (maybe too well!), and in
most winters would be more or less evergreen. If the winter was
very severe they would lose their leaves completely, but would
probably be more likely to survive than those in the list.

Nah. Akebia quinata is hardy, but deciduous in all but very mild
winters. It has more-or-less kept its leaves on the last two, but
they have been freakishly mild. Before that, it lost its leaves
every year.

It would be worth trying A. quinata (perhaps less so trifoliata) as it is
cheap and very quick growing. If it was not evergreen enough, it would not
be a great loss to remove it and try something else. Stauntonia hexaphylla
could be an alternative to Holboellia latifolia, and perhaps Trachelospermum
jasminoides is also an option. The OP was talking about a south or west
facing position which was "fairly sheltered".

Cambridge may be colder than Bolton, but not by much.

Difficult to tell from Met Office info available on the web. I guess Bolton
is too far inland to have its climate influenced by the sea. Have really
only the last two winters been freakishly mild? Surely only a couple of the
last dozen or so winters have shown anything like the sort of frosts we
should have expected.

Maybe I should start another thread for this, but I have often wondered
why - other than ivy - there are just about no reliably hardy evergreen
plants. By hardy I would define plants which can survive, with no or minimal
damage, what our friends on the other side of the pond would claim as a Zone
6 climate (there are few enough which would be happy in Zone 7!).

--
Jeff
(cut "thetape" to reply)