Yes, you can see through the wooden fence. It's the style where the vertical boards alternate sides of the horizontal support. From far away the fence appears solid, from up close, particularly on an angle, it does not. I wish to screen the view of my neighbour's house (20 ft from the fence) but mostly the yard in general. They have an aggressive dog and a tendency to leave a lot of garbage out. The fence is roughly 6 ft tall. (I'd take a picture, but it's hard to do that without looking like a creep!)

Thanks for the info, it sounds like I should stick to pruning to encourage growth, and then train it where i want it to go.

I will be thrilled if it turns out I over-bought for this situation. Quick coverage is key. The fence is about 65 ft long, with other areas the vines could expand to. I did buy the plants based on a knowledgable local nursery's advice. Plus it's partial shade, plus it's zone 5/6, so we will see how they grow!

I think the vine is going to grow to the top of the fence first and then horizontally from there. I think over time the bottom we'll get filled in and covered but it's going to be hard to prune it to cover the bottom first. Also, this variety reseeds heavily so at some point, I promise it'll completely cover that fence from to to bottom even if you don't prune it at all.

At the very least I will want to train the vine to get the maximum spread/coverage, even if I don't end up doing any pruning. I find from pictures of clematis (Sweet Autumn and otherwise) they tend to be rather leggy, with most of the bulk on the top. Which is fine, but I do want to encourage it to cover as much of the fence with foliage as possible.

I've not found my SAC to ever be leggy at all. This one is 12 yrs old, and is always full at the bottom. I cut it to about 1 ft every fall or winter, and it reaches our roof by mid-summer ....

Lovely looking vine MizGG! I wonder if the limited space encourages it to fill in so well. Usually I see pictures where the vine looks more like this:

Whoops, posting that picture didn't work. Either way, it looks great.

Thank you! :)

It tries to spread ... it would like to take over the window planter and nearby shrubs. :D About once a month, I pull a few wandering stems back.

The trellis under: