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Vine Combinations Zone 6

11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago

Hi my wife and I are having and apartment built on a lot close to ours. Our backyard is very open (3 acres) and we've been debating landscaping ideas on how to block the new view. We've settled on building a row of lattices and growing vines on them. Our criteria for picking vines are:

1) Grow quickly

2) Flowering

3) As evergreen as possible in our zone

So after some research we decided both Coral (trumpet) honeysuckle (lonicera semervirens, specifically major wheeler) and clematis (probably one of the purple varieties) would best meet our needs. It was hard to choose between the two but I think we've decided on the honeysuckle because it has a very long blooming season, attracts hummingbirds, is listed as hardy from zones 4-8, and as a nice bonus is native.

So I guess I've got a couple questions:

1. To anyone familiar with this type of honeysuckle, will it be evergreen in our zone (southern Indiana, zone 6b)? If not, are the vines still thick enough they'd continue to block the view.

2) If it's truly deciduous in our area, would it be possible to grow a true evergreen vine (like ivy) with it so that it would give the illusion of being evergreen in winter.

3) How similar are clematis and honeysuckle vines? Do they have significantly different pruning needs? We also debated growing clematis and honeysuckle together as long as it wouldn't look too busy.

Thanks and any insight would be greatly appreciated

Comments (4)

  • 11 years ago

    It will not be evergreen for you. An established honeysuckle does produce a dense network of vining stems but how well they will provide any sense of privacy or screening during the winter months depends on what you accept as a visual barrier. IMO, it's not going to provide much.

    Combining vines is a tricky proposition, much like combining groundcovers can pose some problems. One choice will always grow more aggressively than another and will overwhelm its less aggressive neighbor, sometimes even to the point of smothering it. And pruning methods do vary by vine.

    In my area, the ivy is by far the most aggressive and will easily outpace any other ornamental vine to its detriment. I would never suggest combining ivy with another plant.....the ivy will always win. The honeysuckle will be more aggressive than any type of clematis you could grow in your zone so I doubt they will work well together. And depending on type, clematis have much different pruning requirements than does the honeysuckle.


    You could try planting different vines on different sections of lattice, making sure there is suffice spacing between them so that the vines are not actually growing together but will individually fill each section of lattice. But I doubt any vine is going to provide the screening you desire. Since you have such a generous area you can plant in, can you not consider something that will provide year-round privacy screening, like a row of conifers?

  • 11 years ago

    Actually our first idea was to plant a row of Fat Alberts (Blue Spruces) along that property line but after looking up the price per tree and doing a quick calculation on how many would be needed to cover that line made it impractical. And that's not even considering that it'd take years for them to grow tall and wide enough to block sight line.

    For a quarter of the price, we are planning on putting these lattices up (each panel will be six feet high and eight feet long) and growing vines to make it an "attractive feature" rather than a "fence".

    Your comment on one vine eventually dominating the other struck home... That was my fear as well.

    "It will not be evergreen for you. An established honeysuckle does produce a dense network of vining stems" My hope is that between the vine network and the lattice it'll block the view enough. I mean honestly the lattice will probably block the view enough but I was looking for a way to make it interesting rather than just a fence.

    Great suggestion on different types of vine on each panel. An idea I had been toying with was putting clematis on the outside two panels and honeysuckle in the middle. Just print the lattice line to keep the vines to themselves. But I wasn't sure how this would look.

    Would you agree with the Major Wheeler or is the Dropmore Scarlett a better choice. I thought the MW would be better due its long blooming season and mildew/mold resistant bit I recently read that DS is hardy up to zone 3. Maybe that would stay green even longer?


  • 11 years ago


    This is roughly my idea. Have the panels angled to give it depth when looking at it

  • 11 years ago

    Personally, I would go the rose route. They will form an impenetrable barrier eventually, and (of course) be quite pleasant to look at. Go with Ramblers if you go with lattice panels, or perhaps Rugosa and skip the lattice. Both are carefree after the first two years. Greenwood Nursery sells Rugosa roses in bundles of 25 or so very economically (the catch is they are small and delicate, so they should be planted in early spring when still cool so the odds of them dying from heat stroke or thirst are minimized). Personally, I think winter privacy is over-rated, and we've got way too many arborvitae hedges as it is. Who is out there anyway? If you let the winter privacy go, now you can have something beautiful during the season when you are actually outside and active. Otherwise, you've got something meh all year 'round.

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