[Daisy]

I am very lucky to have so many lovely neighbours in my village.
Unfortunately, my immediate neighbour is not one of them.
I have planted a short row of Rose Blush Noisette near our boundary wall, but they are taking their time in providing a screen.
There is just room to plant a row of something else to do the job just behind them. But what?
They need to be evergreen, about 8 feet or 2.5 metres tall. very slim and stay upright and tight to the wall.
Everything I can think of, would need clipping to stay slim enough and I think that would become impossible to do, after a few years.
Any ideas?
Daisy

[Marilyn]

Hi Daisy,
I planted Blush Noisette in my mother's garden to train over a seat with a sort of small pergola on top - it did mooch for the first year or two but then went BANANAS and is now rather too big for the structure, but it is sooooo gorgeous that we leave it and reluctantly prune more frequently than we would really like to. You are probably already aware of this potential vigour, but in case not, my advice would be to give yours a good feed this spring and see if they don't respond by rocketing up the wall... they will easily fill the space if this is the year they "take off". On the other hand, a skinny dark green screen behind might make a nice permanent foil anyway - maybe pencil cypress closely planted? A bit of a pricey option, though... :/

[Alisdair]

Before I read Marilyn's note, cypress had occurred to me too! You could eliminate the cost element by growing them from seed taken from a grove of good thin ones (they come easily and quite quickly from seed), but the risk is that the seed doesn't always come true, so you might have to rogue out some fatties.
This would be a short-term answer though, as a close-planted row would outgrow itself after five or six years.

[ezeiza]

Is it a warm spot? If so, Thunbergia alata in its three or four color forms would be exceptionally rewarding, in flower even through the winter months. You need a mesh for support but otherwise compact and maintenance free.

[Fleur Pavlidis]

I'd shy away from planting another permanent row of shrubs - it could result in a pruning nightmare and your roses have to fight for food and water. I'd go with using a fairly temporary climber to cover the wall like Thunbergia until the roses take off, or a more permanent one like Clematis armandii or Trachelospermum jasminoides if you can plant it to the side of the roses and eventually have it trained along the top of the wall, possibly on a raised trellis, all the better to block out the neighbours.

[Daisy]

Thanks for all your replies.
Unfortunately, I dare not attach anything to the wall to provide support for a climber.
My neighbours would see this as trespass. They consider the wall to be theirs on both sides.
I love pencil cypress, but here it would be impractical, as well as being out of scale in such a tiny garden.
I have decided to try a short row of Dodonaea viscosa purpurea. I know that I will have to clip them, but I now have a cunning plan as to how to do this.
Also the colour will look good behind the lilac-pink and white blooms of the rose.
Daisy

[David Bracey]

Daisy if you could put up some string ties you could grow some annuals such as Spainish haricots, Humulus, or Ipomoea.

[Alisdair]

Jorun made such a useful suggestion about using steel reinforcement bars or "rebars" (for reinforced concrete) as supports for climbers that I have moved her suggestion from here to start a new topic under Cultivation.