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What plant here to hide the ugly gravel boards?

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  • Thanks everyone, really appreciate it  :) I've thought about it but not had the courage to do it until the recommendations here, and I'm so pleased I did. Clearly I need a new fence (and I generally prefer the natural look rather than painted, but it was here when I moved in) but until I can afford that I think it does the job fine  :)

    As a side note - I really love purple flowers, but they tend to get lost against my fence, so I'd still be interested in any nice evergreen shrub recommendations that I could use as a backdrop! I'm a bit rubbish when it comes to shrub knowledge
  • @Bluejayway I've thought about that, and experimented with it right at the bottom of the garden where hidden, but there's no way to do it that doesn't look strange and it would also be an eyesore for my neighbours. My hope is that once the climbers reach above fence height, they will be more hidden. Terrible wonkly and ugly fence!
  • BluejaywayBluejayway Posts: 392
     :* 
  • PoppypussPoppypuss Posts: 143
    I think a Nandina false bamboo would look great against that fence. 
  • I have been thinking about bamboos... but aren't they terribly invasive? I've never owned one before!
  • Poppypuss isn't suggesting bamboo, Nandina is completely different.
    Southampton 
  • Oh yes, I've never even heard of it! I just Googled and it looks really interesting - it's exactly the right kind of shape i need, something that can be trained to be not too "fat". I'll do  a bit more research, thanks Poppypuss for the suggestion!
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Looks great now @gilla.walmsley.  :)
    I know you said you like purple flowers but are worried about them not showing against the colour, but if the plants have good green, or yellow, foliage, the flowers will be against that, rather than the fence  :)  
    Another possible for an evergreen is Escallonia. They're mainly pinks, but there's a white variety. If you don't get severe winters, it should be ok. I couldn't keep it alive here unfortunately, but that's worth looking at. Some of the Euonymous varieties would work too, but they'd climb against the fence which may not be suitable.
    If your climbers do well, you won't really need much else though.  If you add some vine eyes to the posts, you could have one of the early, small flowering clematis though, to give early colour, and they have a permanent framework which will hide the fence a bit through winter. They prefer a drier, more free draining soil. If the fence isn't yours that's more difficult though   :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • WaterbutWaterbut Posts: 344
    Try potted grape vines. I did. Place a stone slab on the ground. Buy feet to put the ceramic pots on for drainage. Fill with John Innes compost. Stick fancy metal trellises into the ground behind the pots then plant the vines. Plenty of advice here or use your search engine. Be warned every article gives you different advice so pick out what suits you. Good luck with what ever you decide.
  • Escallonia is very pretty @Fairygirl - I REALLY like it! The pink would look lovely against the fence and go well with the general planned colour scheme which will be pink/purple/white/blue (I'm planning to get rid of the coral Geums seen in this pic as they didn't turn out to be the colour I imagined!). Drier, free-draining soil is exactly what I have, so will definitely have a think about the clematis too. It's my (horrible) fence, so no issues there.

    @arossrob grape vines would be interesting! I was thinking about doing something like that with a climbing rose, but of course that wouldn't be evergreen, so will research grape vines and similar!

    Up until now I've been mainly feeding my obsession with growing and have primarily covered my garden in annuals every year (and a few perennials I grew from seed). But after 4 years I've come to the conclusion that the effort in April/May is just too enormous and I need to start investing in perennials/shrubs next year. Please someone remind me of this statement when it comes to seed-buying time 
    :D 
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