Climbing plants for trellis

[emily84]

Hi All,

Attached is a picture of my dog Danny modelling the beautiful "summerhouse" that my handy to have around OH built for me.

The "summerhouse" (named to avoid calling it "the woodern thing he built") is just over 6ft tall and just short of 7ft wide.

I have got some roses to go up the side so that's sorted and I have brought, slighlty spur of the moment, two plants for the front. One is a Clematis Arabella and the other is Honeysuckle Serotina. Do you think these will be suitable?

I know the Clematis will not get as tall as the Honeysuckle but I thought if they will meet up that's fine.

Also, as you can see, the front area is slabbed so they would need to be in pots. Is this ok for both these plants of if so what kind of size do I need?

Position wise they would get early morning sun, then be shaded midday and get the afternoon sun again; is this ok?

The plants are currently about 8-9" tall, will they do much this year or would I kind of be wasting my time?

Any help or advice you can offer would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Emily

[tamsin]

Sounds good to me I'm no expert but I've found both clematis and honey suckle pretty fast growers so I expect they won't stay 8" for long. I googled and it sounds like that's a later flowering clematis so you may even get some flowers this year. I'd go as big as you can fit for pots and they'll do best. I put a few morning glory in next to my new clematis, as they are fast annuals and will add a splash of clolour whilst you wait for everything else to fill in.

[ginger ninger]

I grew both honeysuckle and clematis in large pots for years. They grow rather fast so you should be ok letting them ramble over your "Summerhouse". The berries on the honeysuckle when they appear are loved by wild birds.