I had the same ugly cement brick wall all across the back yard behind the pool. My husband made a treliss out of red wood 1x1's. So it is just the width and height I wanted. Mine does lean into the wall at the top it is about 10" away at the bottom. I planted a climming rose (Small white flowers). This area gets cooking hot but the rose doesn't seem to mind and its NOT hooked up to a drip(water with hose) and it stays green all year. It breaks up the wall and maintence is little.

My rose is handling all the heat the west wall and patio can throw at it. Maybe a climbing type rose?

a climbing rose would be nice. at this point anything would be nicer than a blank wall of heat lol. but could climbing roses survive next summer's heat in a container? i'm not able to plant them in the ground unless i have sections of the concrete removed.

The climbing rose they're talking about is probably Lady Banks, a species rose. It comes in both white and yellow. A west-facing wall and containered roots are not a great idea for climbing roses. The container gets hot, constricts root growth and soil will compact over time and roots will become exposed.

If you can build a raised bed the Lady Banks or Climbing Cecile Brunner would probably be excellent choices. Modern, grafted climbers would appreciate more afternoon shade.

The ficus tree will use water, soil and grow a dense canopy. If this tree is within 15ft of a climbing rose, you may have troubles with one or both plants. Roses don't like to share and trees are hogs. A tree will even root into a container if it wants the contents. The dense canopy of a ficus can throw too much shade on a nearby rose, leaving it sparse in leaf, bloom and new growth.

Texas A&M has been doing a study on Earth-Kind Roses, a certification earned by only 22 cultivars out of a field of hundreds, to date. While most of these Earth-Kind Roses would need to be ordered, the fact they received certification based on arid alkaline clay soils, less fertilization and disease resistance bears looking into. You won't find a modern rose or a hybrid tea on the list but these are some awesome garden performers.

thanks for the info moroseaz. i can build a large container to cover the entire area (~3ft x 10ft) since i dont need it or use it anyhow. i'm not even entirely sure why concrete perimeters are popular with newer-ish homes. i think it looks silly and would prefer foundation plantings like the homes from the 50s. but i cant have that without removing sections of the sidewalk (which might be a possibility if they dont serve a useful purpose). regarding the ficus, i have a good 4-5 years before it's large enough to shade the area completely so i figured i would plant something for the heat and sun this year, then plant something that prefers afternoon shade when that time comes. and the tree is a good 20ft from the house and will be deep watered on drip, so i dont expect many troubles from the roots. there's alot of vines that can tolerate the direct sun and reflected heat of the location, but i think my biggest hurdle is that it also has to be grown from a container in a hot spot. thats a difficult environment for anything other than cacti. i'm just not so sure removing sidewalk sections and planting vines next to my foundation is a good idea. otherwise it'd be planting more bougainvillea in a heartbeat!