Hello all,
I have a weeny garden overlooked by two big blocks of flats. I expect to have moved from this flat by summer 2007, so I need a very fast solution to my privacy problem.
My partner is building me a pergola this week and I want something to cover it for next summer. (optimistic?) Lots of people say mile a minute is too rampant, but in my situation perhaps it would be worth it?
I just want somewhere shady and private to sit with my baby next summer, then I'm outta here!
Any other suggestions? I've had honeysuckle and clematis suggested - but I really don't think they will cut it for next year. The onlooking windows are sooo close I need growth above my head before it will be private. The soil is very dry and solid clay at ten inches deep.
Kate

Hi Kate

Mile a minute will cover it within the year and if you don't like it,
just cut it at the root and it will just die back. But I am sure that
the people who buy your flat will appreciate the privacy too!


Ceci

In article . com, CECI
writes
Hi Kate

Mile a minute will cover it within the year and if you don't like it,
just cut it at the root and it will just die back. But I am sure that
the people who buy your flat will appreciate the privacy too!

They won't, however, appreciate the complete disappearance of the
pergola under a mass of vine a year or two later.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

The message
from kate7 contains these words:

I just want somewhere shady and private to sit with my baby next
summer, then I'm outta here!
Any other suggestions? I've had honeysuckle and clematis suggested -
but I really don't think they will cut it for next year. The onlooking
windows are sooo close I need growth above my head before it will be
private. The soil is very dry and solid clay at ten inches deep.

Jerusalem artichokes - and you can eat them from autumn onwards.
Sunflowers, teazles, hollyhocks, tree mallow.

Or get some bamboos in big planters and take them with you when you move.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

"kate7" wrote ...

Hello all,
I have a weeny garden overlooked by two big blocks of flats. I expect
to have moved from this flat by summer 2007, so I need a very fast
solution to my privacy problem.
My partner is building me a pergola this week and I want something to
cover it for next summer. (optimistic?) Lots of people say mile a
minute is too rampant, but in my situation perhaps it would be worth
it?
I just want somewhere shady and private to sit with my baby next
summer, then I'm outta here!
Any other suggestions? I've had honeysuckle and clematis suggested -
but I really don't think they will cut it for next year. The onlooking
windows are sooo close I need growth above my head before it will be
private. The soil is very dry and solid clay at ten inches deep.

Why not use some green plastic shade cloth, you can get quite strong thick
stuff, stapled over the top of the pergola. Instant shade, instant privacy
and no change of a plant taking over.

--
Regards
Bob
In Runnymede, 17 miles West of London

--
Regards
Bob
In Runnymede, 17 miles West of London

In article ,
kate7 wrote:

Hello all,
I have a weeny garden overlooked by two big blocks of flats. I expect
to have moved from this flat by summer 2007, so I need a very fast
solution to my privacy problem.
My partner is building me a pergola this week and I want something to
cover it for next summer. (optimistic?) Lots of people say mile a
minute is too rampant, but in my situation perhaps it would be worth
it?
I just want somewhere shady and private to sit with my baby next
summer, then I'm outta here!
Any other suggestions? I've had honeysuckle and clematis suggested -
but I really don't think they will cut it for next year. The onlooking
windows are sooo close I need growth above my head before it will be
private. The soil is very dry and solid clay at ten inches deep.

Runner beans. Large leaves, fast growing, decorative flowers, and
edible. What more do you want?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 17/6/05 20:50, in article , "Janet
Baraclough" wrote:

The message . com
from "CECI" contains these words:

Hi Kate

Mile a minute will cover it within the year and if you don't like it,
just cut it at the root and it will just die back.

That is mistaken, mile- a minute (russian vine/polygonum
baldshuanicum) is far harder to kill than you suggest. If you cut it off
at the roots, the stump will regrow or suckers will grow from the roots.


And even more vigorously, IME. Do NOT plant this thing to cover a pergola.
Not. Ever! It is impossible to describe its properties to anyone who hasn't
seen it in action - thug doesn't even begin to describe it. Buy some of
that brush type cover and put it over the pergola while honeysuckle and
roses grow up it in their own good time, and leave those as a happy legacy
for the owners who come after you.
--

Sacha
(remove the weeds for email)

The message
from Sacha contains these words:
On 17/6/05 20:50, in article , "Janet
Baraclough" wrote:
The message . com
from "CECI" contains these words:

Mile a minute will cover it within the year and if you don't like it,
just cut it at the root and it will just die back.

That is mistaken, mile- a minute (russian vine/polygonum
baldshuanicum) is far harder to kill than you suggest. If you cut it off
at the roots, the stump will regrow or suckers will grow from the roots.

And even more vigorously, IME. Do NOT plant this thing to cover a pergola.
Not. Ever! It is impossible to describe its properties to anyone who hasn't
seen it in action - thug doesn't even begin to describe it. Buy some of
that brush type cover and put it over the pergola while honeysuckle and
roses grow up it in their own good time, and leave those as a happy legacy
for the owners who come after you.

It was three storeys high along two walls of a house I used to live in.
It also covered an eight foot high, thirty foot wall adjoining the
house.

The thing was planted two years previously.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

Jaques d'Alltrades writes
The message
from Sacha contains these words:
On 17/6/05 20:50, in article , "Janet
Baraclough" wrote:
The message . com
from "CECI" contains these words:

Mile a minute will cover it within the year and if you don't like it,
just cut it at the root and it will just die back.

That is mistaken, mile- a minute (russian vine/polygonum
baldshuanicum) is far harder to kill than you suggest. If you cut it off
at the roots, the stump will regrow or suckers will grow from the roots.

And even more vigorously, IME. Do NOT plant this thing to cover a pergola.
Not. Ever! It is impossible to describe its properties to anyone who hasn't
seen it in action - thug doesn't even begin to describe it. Buy some of
that brush type cover and put it over the pergola while honeysuckle and
roses grow up it in their own good time, and leave those as a happy legacy
for the owners who come after you.

It was three storeys high along two walls of a house I used to live in.
It also covered an eight foot high, thirty foot wall adjoining the
house.

The thing was planted two years previously.

Is it related to hedge bindweed? ISTR it looking very similar, and its
speed is similar.
--
David

In article , Dave
writes

On 17/6/05 20:50, in article , "Janet
Baraclough" wrote:

That is mistaken, mile- a minute (russian vine/polygonum
baldshuanicum) is far harder to kill than you suggest. If you cut it off
at the roots, the stump will regrow or suckers will grow from the roots.


Is it related to hedge bindweed? ISTR it looking very similar, and its
speed is similar.

No, not at all closely related. I suppose the leaves and growth habit
look similar, but the flowers show it to be in the dock family, along
with the ornamental bistorts and japanese knotweed. You didn't by any
chance mean black bindweed - Fallopia convolvulus, with dosk-like
flowers not big white open bells - that is a close relative, since
russian vine appears to have been moved from Polygonum to Fallopia.

Hedge bindweed is Calystegia and is in the Convolvulaceae family along
with Ipomoea.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"