I've never quite understood how someone couldn't LOVE gardening. For me, I could spend hours in the garden; actually I can spend hours in ANYONE'S garden and have often been seen in friend's gardens helping them plant, remove, replant, and dig! As long as I'm digging in dirt, I'm happy.
So a bit about my own garden. I have a very small garden. Most of my backyard is taken up with a large deck and because I live in a cookie cutter house on a cooking cutter street, my yard isn't very wide. The part that isn't deck out my back yard has a border garden.
Engleman Ivy in full sun
And since in the cookie cutter design of subdivision homes, I decided to plant Parthenocissus quinquefolia 'Engelmannii a.k.a Engleman Ivy to grow up and along my fence. It gives a really nice softening affect to hard looking fences. Plus the birds love it and are always hiding in it and eating the berries that come out in early fall on the plant.
Engleman Ivy will grow in shade or sun so no matter what part of my fence I put it on, it looks great. Having said that, the best fall colors are on the part of the fence that is in full sun. In the fall, the leaves turn orange then red. Very pretty! Since it's a crazy fast growing vine, cutting it back is no problem in the fall. It actually looks much better the following summer when it is cut back. I usually take at least a foot off the top of it and tidy up the suckers that grow around the base.
The only problem I've ever had with Engleman Ivy. I did try it once on some arbors that surround my deck, and it actually looked great (for a while) but as summer went on, the leaves started to stress and fall off. Turned out that because the area was really sheltered. there just wasn't enough air movement to keep the vine happy.
Love the Englishmans Ivy
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