My husband is building a pergola in our backyard, and I wanted to plant a climbing vine for looks and shade. Any suggestions as to what kind would be best?
We have a beautiful coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) on our pergola. Red and yellow blooms most of the spring and summer. Well behaved vine with evergreen foliage.
Wife and I bought a vinyl pergola few years ago and planted a banksia rose on each side. looked nice but it had to be pruned and you sure didn't want to walk thru it. It is in a bed that makes the privacy screen for our pool. The pergola had shifted some so I cut the roses to stumps and straightened the thing and plan to let it start over this year. We are up in the Shreveport area.
I have a few suggestions: 1) Zephirine Drouhin climbing rose - fragrant, thornless, loves heat 2) Star ("Confederate") jasmine - evergreen vine, in the deep South, with wonderfully fragrant white flowers in the late spring. 3) Carolina jessamine - Another evergreen vine that makes yellow, fragrant flowers in the spring. 4) Coral honeysuckle - evergreen and very attractive to hummingbirds. Does not have fragrance like the uncontrollable japanese honeysuckle.
There are lots of others that generally die out in the winter, but come back in the spring. If you want a list of those let me know. Some of them are wonderful.
I have coral honeysuckle and it's a good one. I also like pink lemonade honeysuckle which is also called Gold Flame. It grows fairly fast and blooms a lot.
Jovy, Confederate jasmine is a great suggestion! I grew Carolina jessamine on one of my clothesline poles years ago. It gets pretty heavy after awhile.
Have an arbor at my kitchen garden entrance this year and I planted Sweet Autumn clematis on each side. The vines are just now starting to climb.
