I have experience w/ Rosa 'Climbing Pinkie' if you like pink roses. Very easy, disease resistant, and vigorous. It only took 3 years to completely cover an entrance arbor. It blooms twice a year. I ordered it from the Antique Rose Emporium. BTW, you can call them up and talk to them about what you need and they will recommend roses for you.

If you don't have deer, I think Sweet Autumn Clematis is another fine plant, particularly for a rustic arch.

The "spruce-looking thing" you saw...was it a weeping blue atlas cedar? I really like these, but I think it would only work if you have a very substantial framework for it to grow on. I also think it would take some skill to prune and train it properly.

I agree with the roses and clematis. I would hesitate to suggest Carolina jessamine or Swamp jessamine/ Gelsemium sempervirens or G. rankinii - they both, while evergreen, can grow very large/long, to 20', and might overwhelm the arch, never mind the amount of trimming back you would be forced to do, but the yellow flowers (scented for Carolina, unscented for Swamp) are nice, and the fall into winter flowering period(s) gives color when the garden is otherwise bare(r). The same for most wisterias - too big, too much work. One of the better-behaved honeysuckle might be good - and, if selected well, would also add scent. Another possibility - ordered from a specialty catalogue probably - would be Carolina Aster, since it also climbs. If in a sheltered area, the Asiatic jasmine, Trachelospermum asiaticum or its cousin T. jasmoides/Confederate jasmine would be evergreen and scented, but might, like the Gelsemium, be bigger than you want. The flowers are scented, and many cultivars' leaves turn bronze-y in winter.

The native Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) is very nice, hummers love the blooms and songbirds love the red berries. Mine bloomed from spring (smothered in blooms) and then intermittently through summer. By the time the summer blooms were fading the spring blooms were fruiting. Drought tolerant and no bug/disease issues as far as I've seen. Not fragrant but the color is gorgeous!

Grow a couple different things together to increase bloom times/seasons. I could easily grow another vine with this honeysuckle and probably will when I figure out what I want.

Here is a link that might be useful: Coral Honeysuckle

I like all these suggestions. It's going to be hard to pick one or two.
Thanks so much!

I agree about the rose and clematis suggestion being the clematis freak that I am, but I would not recommend Sweet autumn clematis as it reseeds with wild abandon in my garden and is considered an invasive weed in some areas--not to mention the fact that it may or may not have any scent to the flowers depending on how it was grown. If grown as a cutting from a plant that has fragrant flowers it will have a fragrance. If grown from a seed of a fragrant plant, it may or may not have any fragrance.

An often overlooked clematis that has a fragrant bloom that I love is clematis viticella Betty Corning. The fragrance isn't one that will knock you over but is noticeable enough that I pick boquets of the flowers to bring into the house and enjoy the fragrance. It will rebloom if you cut it back hard after the initial first bloom cycle, is covered with flowers once it gets mature, and the flowers are sterile (no viable pollen)so there is no issue with it reseeding with wild abandon unless you purposefully pollinate it with another clematis' pollen. Mine is still blooming now intermittently now even with the frosts we have had.

Here is a picture of a bloom from last week.

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I grow these annuals on mine (it's in full sun): Morning Glory 'Heavenly Blue', purple Hyacinth Bean Vine, Cardinal Vine. THey look wonderful together and willingly reseed themselves each year. Best of all, they cost me nothing, thanks to the seed exchange here (lmk if you want seeds). Email me for a photo if you'd like to see it. I will send anyone a link to my garden photo album located at kodakgallery.com.

I offer a second endorsement for Lonicera sempervirens, the native Coral Honeysuckle. Last year, mine was blooming during every month except December and January!! It is the favorite of the hummingbirds and the fruit draw in other songbirds.

I adore coral honeysuckle, too. I have seen blooms in dec, and last year it had buds pretty much year round. I grow mine with carolina jessamine, as i like the color and leaf combo. Carolina jessamine can be fairly aggressive with runners and seeds, so just be aware and watch for that. If you don't care for the color of coral honeysuckle, there are yellow and orangey- yellow flowered cultivars available out there. I also have the gold-flame honeysuckle (like the icon on the carolinas page) and it's fairly well behaved as well. The bonus with it is it's very fragrant. Also blooms nearly year round for me.
I have to agree that autumn clematis, while pretty when blooming and in seed, is a thug and reseeds everywhere.
Of course, your original idea of roses and clematis is a good one, too! I grow my gold flame with a peach rose and a pink and orange rose (reads as peach). A clematis would be welcome in the mix, too. I love the one nick posted, and clematis viorna is another favorite.

If it's sturdy enough, why not plant some fruiting vines? Hardy kiwi or even grape might be worth considering if you have good sun. The upside is that these vines look nice most of the year anyway, and you get some fruit as a bonus (although the grape in particular won't be as good as if you did serious pruning and training). Vining beans or nasturtium would give you some edibles too for not a lot of work on an annual basis. You could even do some melons or pumpkins with slings for the support of the fruit!...it's fun to try (although I failed miserably at it this year...).

Of course, the honeysuckle suggestions are great. And consider moonflower as well...delicious fragrance and an event everyone should watch at least once--a beautiful pure white flower opening at dusk over the span of a minute or so!

Even if you don't want to do the annuals long term, you can use them to fill in the first few years while you're waiting for your perenns to get going.

I grow hardy kiwi and the only one i could recommend for a small arch like that would be issai. It's self fertile (the only one that is) and 'smaller' than the others. Trust me, the others would outstrip it in record time. I have to prune mine 3-4 x a summer to keep them halfway in bounds and the area i have is probably at least twice that of an arch. Most people would want to do it more like 6-8x- that's how fast they grow. They are like wisteria in the wilds of china- growing up trees and flowering/fruiting towards the top. So they grow and grow fast! Not for the first few years, but...

I have a new arbor too. I'm going to try 'Tangerine Beauty' crossvine and 'John Clayton' lonicera. I've also had incredible luck with red lonicera, 'Alabama Red' blooms for all but about 3 months.

Of all my vines, my favorite is ruguchi clematis...little nodding purple/lavender bonnets....with an incredibly long bloom time.

I love Roguchi also but it can be a mildew magnet in certain gardens. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why sometimes it is prone to mildew and sometimes it isn't. Some people have no issues with it and others have trouble with it every year. I have had success staving mildew off by using a Bayer fungicide/miticide/insecticide that is Neem oil based.

If you are still looking at a purple clematis, why not try a unique one called Tie Dye that is a throw back to the 70s with its purple and white variegation? Here is a close up of the flower as well as an over view of my plant in its second year. This plant had leaves as big as my hands not it this past year.

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Wow, these clematis are beautiful. I love all the suggestions. I think I will add some annuals to fill in the spaces. I had fun this year with my mailbox - I planted a clematis, but also went a little overboard with thumbergia, moonflower, morning glory, and cardinal climber! The morning glories of course went nuts, so I had to cut them back a little. Everything else was pretty balanced, I was surprised. I won't do the same thing again, but it did look nice. I was afraid the other vines would overpower the clematis and kill it, but it actually came back a few weeks ago with gorgeous blooms. The cold weather has only just now killed it back.

Moonflowers are my favorite; I'm pretty sure I'll be adding it to the arch.