i need ideas for an inexpensive but attractive way to get vines to cover..

[Gato Moteado]

...a white wall. in front of my house i have a white wall that i want to cover with passiflora but there's nothing for the tendrils to grab onto. any ideas on what i could cover the wall with to give the vines something to climb on? i was thinking about chicken wire but wondered if that would look trashy.

[NMDemDist2]

1. the whole point of vines is that they cover whatever's there. will they

die back in winter? if not, just live with the ugly til it's covered, shouldn't take long

if you do need something more attractive, lattice board is cheap and if you paint it white you won't notice it at all as the vines grown up. get a couple metal rods (in the electric dept "grounding rods" they call em I think) the size of your pinky finger and a lattice at the hardware store for less than $10 I bet

[Gato Moteado]

2. good point about the vines eventually covering up the ugly chicken wire...

...and they never should die back since it's perpetual summer here.

i thought about the wooden lattice. the only problem is that the ground along the wall slants downward toward the street. i'd have to make precision angular cuts in the lattice and my toolset at this point is fairly primitive (left some of my better stuff in the states before i left).

i think i'll just try chicken wire or hardware cloth and let the passiflora have at it. it's much easier to cut the wire stuff to the right form...if it's not cut perfectly you can bend it to fit.

whaddaya think?

[NMDemDist2]

3. nah, no cuts. just hang the lattice a couple inches off the ground

you could probably go up 6" before the plants would care BUT chicken wire might work better depending on the weight

take pics!

[K8-EEE]

4. We Hung Some Old Twin Bedsprings On The Siding

of our house....they work great and they actually look kind of industrial/cool, since we grow annuals on it. They are basically the base part of some old discarded trundle beds. My husband made a very simple wood frame and we are growing climbing nasturtiums on it, but they are pretty much fading now in the heat, so I'm going to change out to some scarlett runner beans.

[K8-EEE]

5. Another Thing We've Done On A Concrete Wall....

Is just screw in those screws with the round eyes at the end, and string chicken wire through them to make a sort of "ladder."

[Gato Moteado]

6. yeah, i think that's what i'll do...either chicken wire or hardware cloth

...and maybe i'll paint it green so it blends in with the foliage.

[dcfirefighter]

7. You can get green cx wire here.

it's covered with PVC or something. It's a little more expensive, but not much.

[Gato Moteado]

8. i'm not sure if it's as available here in the third world.....

....but i'll look for it this weekend.