How to Throw Up a Quick Vine Screen

You’re Exposed, Now What?

The Tropical Grower is creating cover this week with How to Throw Up a Quick Vine Screen. We’ve all been there. A weird creepy neighbor or just an overly curious one moves in. A big old tree falls over in a storm. You lose the hedge row to Code Enforcement or bugs. Life’s hard, things happen. Dang.

I spend a great deal of time reorienting my brain to head towards ‘solving the problem’ instead of figuring out why it happened. It’s not easy, and I’m super awful at it. That doesn’t change a thing. My brain is naturally geared to solve problems. It could possibly be my superpower. So, I try to work with what I got, in both respects, and head towards fixing the problem when one pops up.

So, You Need Screening Fast

In this case, we unexpectedly had the back of our pool area opened up to the neighborhood. There’s an undeveloped lot in this area, and we were not silly enough to expect it will never be developed. Nor would we be upset if it did. It’s not that we want a house in this area. We don’t. We’d prefer it be undeveloped with lovely native vegetation. We would have probably added it to Our Garden if it had been anywhere in a reasonable price range. It wasn’t. So, we know the deal.

Half of this lot was strip cleared, all the way to the next road, last week. Dang. But, a house is not being built. I won’t go into it. Focusing on solutions. We needed screening for the pool fast. You literally can see our entire pool deck from the next road. Ugh. Quite garden serenity gone. See, I’m awful at it.

Potted Solutions

Because our entire pool deck is raised and finished in Kentucky Flagstone, any screening vegetation on the inside has to be contained and only trees will be high enough to provide cover from the outside. While we do have baby trees and other vegetation along the fence, replanted after Hurricane Ian, it isn’t big enough for any screening yet. We’ll get there. I’m also adding stuff almost daily.

While there is an open area inside the back corner of the deck where we removed the hot tub, My Mom would not be pleased if I planted something in it. Decking is planned there, and it’s only to one side. That meant pots or containers. Since we have over 20 feet, we started thinking vines instead of a hedge row.

Hedge Row vs. Vines

I regularly recommend people who have small balconies buy small trees or shrubs and line them up along the outside to form a hedge row where they want screening. There were a number of places I lived where this was my happy place. You want tall and bushy. The plants get sun from the outside. You get shade and screening on the inside. If you live in colder climates, try an evergreen variety for all year privacy.

Hedge Row Screens are easy to make, you just line up the pots in a row. The plant varieties can all be the same or different. Plant to any taste. You just have to make sure you get varieties that will grow in your area. The problem here is cost. Pots alone can get expensive, especially if you are looking at big pots or a large run, and you still have to buy the plants and soil.

You can use the starter pots you purchase the plants in, but keep in mind, the roots have probably already filled it. You absolutely need to add soil and start treating them like large bonsai with extra fertilizer and frequent waterings. The pots can be painted or papered for a more finished look. Wiggling eyebrows.

Vines

Vines will cover a larger area with less pots, but they will need some sort of support. Heartier vines like a Jasmine or Grape Vine will obviously need something heavier to hold on to than a Sweet Pea or simple Pole Bean. They will also offer more screening and are less subject to die-off. But, your balcony doubling as a garden does have its own benefits.

The heartier varieties also take longer to grow. If you want to slow-grow a hearty Jasmine, consider planting a quick growing companion, or series of companions like cucumber or squash, for screening while it’s creeping up your supports. Waiting.

Supports

Do yourself a favor and DON’T grow Vines up structures, screens, or dead unstable stuff. They damage supports. The heartier the Vine, the more they burrow into everything around it and grow heavy, knocking stuff over. Dedicating supports to specifically grow Vines, knowing they will eventually damage it, will save you future frustration. If you have a pretty support, grow a delicate Vine and make it last longer.

One solution is to use string, twine, or wire fixed to heavier side supports. Tying a string between two sticks has been the Farmer standard since string was invented. The Vine grows on the string or wire, which you can replace, not the heavier side supports. Wire fencing works extremely well, and you can bend it into a wide variety of shapes. We use and reuse Green Vinyl Coated Wire Mesh Fence 2 feet tall or 4 feet tall with simple 48 Inch and 59 Inch Green Coated Stakes regularly around Our Garden for Vines.

Netting comes in all sorts of materials and strengths, and it’s simple to install. It’s basically just string, twine, plastic, nylon, or wire fixed together to form a sheet. You hang it between your supports. The fasteners depend on the material: wire, staples, clips. You normally see it in rolls or sheets, and it’s cheaper to buy in bulk. We usually have a roll or two laying around to reuse.

Quick Screening Set Up

Use What You Have

The area we needed to screen was over 20 feet long, inside a screened enclosure, on stone, and there are existing structures. A large Wooden Planter with trellis is in one corner and a Pergola in the other. This is exactly where I started when I went into the yard Saturday morning. I’d done exactly NO pre anything. I hadn’t even prepped pots. It literally was an immediate problem that needed a solution.

Pilfering through our stock pile of supplies, I came up with a old wooden Pool Umbrella Frame, a couple of long sections of PVC Pipe, a roll of Nylon Netting and a roll of Plastic Mesh Safety Fence. Bingo. I was in business. Yes, my brain works like this, quick and on the fly. It has its challenges, I’m not going to lie. I like to remind it to hush.

We had a large heavy clay pot in the pool area sitting empty. Well, it was full of weeds and grass. There was a large empty one in the lanai, that’s a screened porch in Tropical Zones, where I’d repotted the plant into something smaller. We also had a large pot of already planted Sweet Potatoes. There might have been an evil finger tent as my plan came together. Since it kept waking me up the night before, I was pretty sure it was all worked out up there, and I just needed to show up. I was right.

Sweet Potatoes

Because we had the ‘ready to go’ pot full of them, my crazy ability to grow the Vine, and there were massive amounts of them already growing all over Our Garden, we chose Sweet Potato Vine for the screen.

It grows like mad, the leaves are big, and while it isn’t a hearty vine, the stems never become hard, it’s about the closest thing to a hearty Vine you can grow without it actually being one. It also grows year round here, no problem. I have to harvest the potato to get rid of it, and I can’t throw it in compost. It takes over the baskets. Perfect for screening.

Prep & Place the Pots

After gathering all my found materials, it was time to strong-arm the pots into place and prep them for the Vines. One pot was centered between the Pergola poles. The other 2 were spaced evenly between the Pergola and Planter. All the pots were placed at the very edge of the deck in a straight line.

The empty and partially empty pots were filled from our pile of Yard Sand. It’s sand with a little ground-up vegetation. Sweat Potatoes grow in sand. Then, I sprinkled in some slow release gradual vegetable fertilizer and several scoops of compost into all of them and mixed, mixed, mixed. This included the pot of already growing Vines.

If we were growing actual Sweet Potatoes, I would skip adding any nitrogen to the soil, that includes mixing in compost. But we are growing the Vines, you want to add nitrogen for Vines to grow big and green and strong.

Insert Supports

For supports, we recycled a couple of lengths of PVC Pipe and an old Wooden Pool Umbrella Frame. One was inserted into each pot near the back. I used a level to make sure they were straight and hard packed until stable. These need to be stable. If they are wobbly, you could lose it all in a gust of wind. If you’re still unstable after packing, try adding some large heavy rocks around the base.

Remember, we used very large pots. Your pots need to be big and heavy enough to hold up the supports, the netting, and the plants. If you have any height at all to your screen, you’re going to need some weight to hold everything up.

Placing the supports towards the outside gave us about 8 to 10 inches of space between the supports and the screen. We’ve already established you do not want to grow Vines on screen. You want enough space, the Vines you are growing, cannot easily reach out and grab onto it. The further you get it away, the less you are going to have to manage keeping it off.

Hang the Netting

We happened to have a roll Plastic Mesh Safety Fence long enough to cover the run from the Planter to the Pergola. It’s thick. This is both good for holding up, what I’m hoping are going to be, numerous heavy Vines and providing some screening itself.

Across the back of the Pergola, we hung the roll of Nylon Netting. I used a stapler to simply fix all the netting into place on the wood. If you don’t hold straight and staple well, you might call in a friend.

While I could have figured out where the staple gun got stored, I just used wire lengths to attach the netting to the PVC Pipe. The stapler doesn’t really work on PVC. I also could have drilled holes to run wire through the pipe or drilled in a few screws. I didn’t. There might be a reattach later if the winds are too high or the Vines get too big.

Add the Plants

As I mentioned, there are numerous Sweet Potato Vines growing all over Our Garden. Besides the actual Sweet Potatoes we grow for food in 2 separate areas, I also have 2 additional areas along the fence lines where I grow Slips, the Vines with roots you plant to grow the Potatoes. They’re alway ready.

All the new plants came from the far area of the yard and the overgrown Potato bed. The long Vines like to drop to the ground and send out roots. I cut the Vines at the root, including the root and long shoot. Then, I planted the root end, including all the roots in the pots. It’s like adding starter plants without the plug of dirt, just roots. For Sweet Potatoes, you basically just cover the roots with sand.

Fasten the Vines

The Vines were fastened to the inside of the netting ONLY to help keep it off the screen. Some Vines are super sticky and you just have to rub them up against the netting and they will stick, but Sweet Potato Vines aren’t like that. You need fasteners. Even for sticky Vines, you should start with fasteners. Snapping off all your hard work and patient waiting because your Vines lost their grip is no fun.

You can also weave the Vines through the netting, but starting with long Vines meant leaves. You can poke them through the little holes if you’re super careful and go slow. Regardless, expect some leaf damage. I, personally, am only willing to weave about a foot where the leaves are smaller.

Because we started with long, already mature, Vines, I had to spend a great deal of time and energy attaching them evenly across the netting. You don’t want to start your Vines overlapping each other. It doesn’t provide even screening or promote new growth. I used Plastic Garden Support Clips to attach the Vines because I have a big bag on hand, and I didn’t want to risk injuring the Vines.

Don’t use fasteners that will injure your plants. Wire is cheap and easy to use, but it can cut through the plant stems. Using a soft fastener that wraps entirely around your plant is so much less risky. If you want an option cheap and easy like wire but doesn’t cut, try wrapping tape. Just don’t get it too tight. You want your planties to have room to grow big, not constrict growth with tight tape.

Now the Waiting

It’s been really hot here and less wet, not for our area, but for us. The storms are on a track to miss Our Garden. The planted Vines are doing fine, not crazy. Nothing has died. I’m not going to lie, I expected them to bush out pretty quickly with all the extra space, but they seem to be taking their sweet time. Dang.

I’m impatient. I know it takes time for plants to grow. It’s kind of their thing. It’s hard looking at the construction workers finishing the house across the street from the back of our pool area. When they stop illegally burning, I’ll get more screening up along the fence to make it less apparent.