Clematis: What vine for sides of garage??, 1 by hczone6

hczone6 wrote:
This is Clematis Jackmanii. I drilled a few small holes and put plastic anchors in the wall (maybe I'll take some close-ups for you). I put a long screw that won't rust into the anchor and left maybe a few inches of the screw out to wrap a wire around. I'm in the phone business so I have spare phone wire and that's what I stretched between the screws. You can get better wire at a hardware store (something like electric fence wire would be perfect. I trained the vine up the wire as it grew. Once it's attached to the wire it holds on very well and you don't have to worry about it. This vine will NOT attach itself to your house. That's the beauty of it. You put the support up for it to grow on. The vine doesn't get very big either so you don't have to worry about it getting out of control. This one is no more than the diameter of my thumb at the base. It send multiple shoots up anyway...a few new shoots each season. If you need to cut it back to work on the house, no problem. Cut it back and it'll grow again to fill it in when you let it grow again. I only trim mine a little each spring to keep it looking the way I want. Other than that, I just let it do whatever it wants. I would never ever put a vine on my house that is too invasive, like ivy. I knew I could easily control this one.

Forgot to mention, this is facing north on one direction and west on the side where it's growing above he windows. It blooms very well in light shade on my house.

By the way, this is only 1 plant. It looks like you'd be better off with 2 plants so they can meet in the middle.

Here's another shot for you. I'll get the close-up of the support for you.



This message was edited Sunday, Apr 6th 7:08 PM