Thank you for your extensive comment, Marco! I'm sorry it took me so long to realize it was here. I swore I wasn't going to do roses (enough thorns here already) but it sounds beautiful and blooms midwinter, so I might have to try the Lady Banks, assuming the rosehips are still good for tea and such.

I'd be cautious with the Lady Banks rose, it needs lots of space and, in my experience, does not like to be pruned. Actually, it's fussy about how it wants to be pruned, electric hedge trimmers are not an option, each cane you want to remove needs to be removed at the junction with the main cane. OP stated they don't have a lot of energy for gardening. We planted a 150' hedge of Lady Banks and it looked good for several years, then it started dying and we had to pull the whole mess out. They are advertised as thornless but some do, in fact, have thorns. And mine were only white flowers, not yellow but the spring show was awesome.

Hi lost leaf. I neglected to mention that Lady Banks roses have no thorns. Now that you mention hips, I for the first time realize they don't produce hips. Maybe not the right choice for you. They are from the mountains of western China, where it is arid with hot summers and cold winters, similar to our conditions. Around here you may find them called "Tombstone roses" in honor of a massive century-old plant in the town of Tombstone.

I don't attempt hybrid tea roses, but they can flourish here with the right care, and produce hips. I'm astounded by the monster size they can attain here. If you miss teas and floribundas, visit the big rose garden in Tucson at Reid Park (take an umbrella against the sun).

A plant that is not exactly a vine but flourishes here is pyracantha. It can be trained on a wall or fence. Deep green evergreen leaves, cream-colored flowers, scarlet berries. But it does have thorns. :-(

Another popular old-fashioned vine, a real vine, is queen's wreath. It has light-green spade-shaped leaves and panicles of pink flowers. In the days before a/c, it was often planted on the west sides of houses and porches because, once established, it can take the blistering afternoon sun and heat. You will see it in old-fashioned neighborhoods. Downside is that in frost the leaves brown and die, so it can be unattractive in winter. By now you've learned that any plant sold as "full sun" is destroyed by full desert sun. But this plant really can take full desert sun. I have one in half-day sun and it does not thrive.

Online you can find plenty of info about cold tolerance of plants, but very little about heat tolerance, which can be frustrating. Only experiment and experience will tell. Kiwi, for example, is a fruit producing vine, but I have no idea how it would fare here in June.

Good luck. And be sure to visit the extension service vegetable garden on Campbell near River Road.

I just stumbled across this Houzz post that mentions a bunch of fruit & vegetable vines an Arizona gardener is experimenting with. You may already have seen it, but if not, here is the link:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/4143916/what-i-am-experimenting-with-this-year?n=7

The Queen's Wreath is beautiful - that looks like a good candidate. I googled it and found some medicinal/edible uses too. And thank you for the link, tons of info!

Don't believe the rumours that Lady Banks Roses have no thorns. I had to take out 20' of vines that grew up the fence, latched on to my tangerine tree, grew up that to grip the big plum tree, and started to strangle both. I got about half of it removed before I gave up and paid someone to finish the job. The thorns were VICIOUS, the vines extremely tough and fibrous, and it was a very very unpleasant job. And I LOVE gardening and pruning. I prune for fun and relaxation. I will never do (or recommend) the Banks roses again.

That is interesting that your Lady Banks has thorns. I train mine horizontally atop an iron fence, about breast height, 20 feet across, and as MaryMcP comments above, I have to snip off individual canes to keep it in bounds. But I've never encountered a thorn. I wonder if thorns are a trait of white v. yellow (mine is yellow), or if it is a trait of individual plants, some with, some without. Maybe best to pay close attention when buying one. Or maybe I haven't climbed deep enough into mine to encounter thorns. Hmmm...

I had thorns on both the white and the yellow variety, maybe one quarter or one third of the plants and we had about 35 or so. Just yanked out the last one a week ago, I almost took pictures of my bleeding forearms for you...... ;-). You would not need to 'climb deep' to encounter the thorns. Maybe check closely when you buy the plant. I did not pay attention at all because I thought they were thornless. Nope.

Yikes! So sorry to hear about your lacerated forearms. It inspired me to go out and look very closely at my Banksia Rose, at both old wood and new green canes. I was curious to find no thorns. I wonder if, in my newbie's ignorance ten years ago, I blundered into an odd thornless plant. Given that the rose is beside our outdoor dining table, I'm glad of this quirk.

Marco's first post is spot on.

Grape vines do very well here. Look for varieties that are heat tolerant. I planted some this spring, but then decided I was going to move and I stopped watering them. There are several wine grapes that do well here so long as you don't mind the seeds. The following link has some good info on growing grapes here and includes a list of varieties that the UofA has tested. Wine Grapes in the Desert

I don't know that you'd want to grow them up your fence, but melon vines do very well here given enough water and protection from critters.

I too have mostly given up on growing veggies, save for tomatoes. I start my tomatoes indoors from seed around the 1st of the year and plant them in raised beds in mid-March. I use drip irrigation and cover the soil with plastic sheeting topped with bark to trap in moisture. They will fruit until it gets really hot in July. The plants will look really sad through summer, but they will leaf out again and start producing around the end of August. I find that caterpillars are a problem in September, so I usually stop watering them and let them die in Summer. In my experience cherry tomato varieties do best.

I also second Marco's take on herbs. Garlic chives and Mexican tarragon are two of my favorites. I find that Thai Basil varieties take the summer heat better, and they re-seed themselves.