Shady Climbers: Specific location

Hi Folks, hoping you can help out.

I'm new to gardening, but know enough to be dangerous with CAD design!
I've started where I know, and created a model of what I'd like to achieve in the garden.

In a particularly overlooked spot in the garden i'd like to grow a climber on a 2.0m trellis, with the (perhaps misplaced) hope that ultimate foliage growth should provide a ~2.5m privacy screen.

Challenge is that this is on the North fence, and our three-storey townhouses reduce evening sunlight.

I had hoped to grow Clematis Armandii (Apple Blossom) in this spot. I've modelled sun positioning to get a rough idea of how much light the area gets over the day - see the photos.

Two questions - first, do you think Armandii would struggle in these conditions?
Secondly, can you think of a more suitable "fast growing evergreen climber" (preferably with flowers)?

10am - Morning

1pm - Midday

4pm - Late Afternoon

7pm - Evening

9pm - Late Evening


Google has pulled up a few promising results but I'm really concerned about light availability. I think the plants will see great growth on the neighbours side but be fairly lacklustre on the side we can see!!

Thanks for your help, Much appreciated.

 

Hi Matt

How important is it that they're evergreen ?

These are all good for flowering well on a north wall........

Roses ( such as Zepherine Droughan)

Any Clematis ( the paler ones such as Nelly Moser keep their colour better in the shade)

Any Honeysuckle ( these are naturally woodland plants)

Hydrangea Petiolaris

For winter/early spring interest you can use

Winter Jasmine

Chanemolese (sorry if the spellings wrong) (flowering quince) (although not strictly a climber is often trained against a wall)

And, what about fruit trees, spring blossom and summer fruit.....

Plum ( Czar )

Morello Cherry

These last two thrive on a north wall

 

I've got a north facing garden and it's quite shady. I've got a Clematis montana "Elizabeth" growing on the north fence and it's absolutely bursting with buds at the moment. It's vigorous and deciduous but here it keeps most of it's leaves all year round. I don't know where you are in the world but maybe it would be the same for you and keep it's leaves.

 

On my shed on the side that is north facing and in constant shade i have a lonicera sempervirens the coral trumpet honeysuckle

Its evergreen ish but produces lovely flowers

 

Awesome, thank you for the tips. I think the consensus so far is that my planned armandii should survive, which is great news. I'll look into the other plants mentioned here as I would like some variety, particularly around the pergola in the photos.

It's important that it creates a year round screen as its a really badly overlooked area of the garden - garden is on an incline so the neighbours are at near shoulder height even with a 6ft fence! I've measured and I know I need a ~2.5m screen to provide a head-height level of privacy (hence going to the full 2.0m planning limit and hoping an aggressive climber will "waterfall" off at the top).

Thanks again for your help

 

I think for a vigorous screening plant the clematis would be best especially a Montana type.

 

Anthony - do you think Armandii won't cut it? I did look at Montana but Google told me it wasn't evergreen - has the internet been lying to me again??

Fern I'm in SW England so hoping for vigorous, year round growth!

Dips that honeysuckle looks great, how fast growing has it been in that area?

 

Its quite fast growing just i keep it trimmed and tidy it up a lot

It almost died last year for some reason but has bounced back well

Here is the RHS page on it

https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/details?plantid=3414

Heads up it has no scent (even thi the rhs says its fragrant) though because it relies on hummingbirds to pollinate it so doesnt need scent altho mine was pollinated this year so im thinking that was a hummingbird moth

 

I've never grown an Armandii, so have no personal experience of it but I have grown a Montana and eventually had to chop it right back as it was almost 40 ft. I think that being in the west country it should keep it's leaves all year round I"m in Worcestershire and mine did.

 

I've been watching this thread, perhaps @ARMANDII's opinion on this would be a good idea, he is 'the man' to talk Clematis with Matt.

 

Armandii - huge thanks, lots of great information in your post... it's a real help.

Sorry I realise now I wasn't very clear on the plan - the green rectangle along the length of the fence, leading up to the pergola is where I'm looking to create a 2.5m privacy screen. The length here is about 24ft:

I did consider Leylandii or another drastic measure, but I was keen not to lose too much garden in creating the screen, hence looking at strong climbers on a trellis.

If I:

• Deeply Plant 6-8 Clematis Armandii (one every 3-4 ft)
• Intersperse another 6-8 Evergreen "Halls prolific" Honeysuckles (one every 3-4ft)
• Ending up with a plant every 1.5-2ft

...Do you think I'd get the desired result?

I should also mention the soil around here is loose, being a new housing estate, but it contains a fair amount of clay & i've known water to sit on the surface without draining too readily. I am planning on turning over the whole length under the fence with sand and compost before planting, and then putting a layer of shingle over that once the plants are established.

Cheers,
Matt

 

Hi Matt
I wouldn't plant just one species of clematis . What if they don't really work out correctly in your location ? If you do want a variety of clematis - there is a bewildering choice ! This Polish clematis site has an encyclopqedia ( top right menu ) . Where you can select the aspect N S E W , colour , evergreen , etc etc . It may give you a few ideas

http://www.clematis.com.pl/en/

 

I did an rhs search what about this one its fast growing, evergreen, and is ok in full shade and clay soil

https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/8776/...e&page=0&aliaspath=%2fplants%2fsearch-results

Most that come up are ivy but here is the search i did. Tweak the search options to fit your garden better

https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/Searc...de&s=desc(plant_merged)&form-mode=true&page=0