Hi
I have a gravelled area at the end of my garden which provides parking for my weekend car. It has a pergola and trellis around it. I currently have two roses climbing one side of it but another side I want something else that once its grown creates a visual barrier.
So these are my requirements -
Evergreen
Not harmful/poisonous to my cats
Grow in clay soil
Area gets full sun until midday and then partial shade for the rest of the afternoon.
It doesn't need to flower although I guess that would be nice!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

On 6/24/2011 5:03 AM, Bex230 wrote:
Hi
I have a gravelled area at the end of my garden which provides parking
for my weekend car. It has a pergola and trellis around it. I currently
have two roses climbing one side of it but another side I want something
else that once its grown creates a visual barrier.
So these are my requirements -
Evergreen
Not harmful/poisonous to my cats
Grow in clay soil
Area gets full sun until midday and then partial shade for the rest of
the afternoon.
It doesn't need to flower although I guess that would be nice!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.




Euonymus fortunei seems a pretty good fit. It is available in many
cultivars with variegation and colour variants to fit almost any taste. It
has the benefits of being almost unkillable by even the most black-thumbed
gardener and it is easily propagated from cuttings but it has the
disadvantage that it can become invasive in the wild as it has in the
eastern US where it can be found both climbing trees and forming mats on
the ground.

You need to consider your climate in careful detail, since few evergreen climbers are fully hardy in every part of the country, except ivy. Probably the evergreen honeysuckles, such as Lonicera henryi, are the hardiest choice. Some others are commonly grown, such as trachelospermum spp (my neighbour's was undamaged by -10C, but that must be pushing it close), and clematis armandii,(my brother's was killed by last winter, that in mildish Warrington). Akebia quinata is pretty hardy, but only evergreen in a mild winter. Berberidopsis corallina, Lapageria rosea and Abutilon megapotamicum all died at -10 in my garden last winter, having survived -9 the previous year. Passion flowers are an option, but again not strictly hardy. Holboellia latifolia is probably similar. Chilean potato vine is probably rather less hardy. Although not strictly a climber, there are some varieties of Pyracantha which are grown as wall shrubs and are evergreen and hardy. Maybe there are some other not-really-climber evergreens which can be grown as wall-shrubs in a similar way.

There you are, some ideas, but you will need to research what is likely to survive your winters.