A useful weapon....if used with care (Russian Vine)

Member Name: Pearl Davison

Product:	Russian Vine
Date:	20/05/01 (2550 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Vigorous and Fast Growing, Atrractive during warmer months, Inexpensive

Disadvantages: Needs Managing, Can easily take over, Ugly during winter

Its not that I don't like children. I do...got two of my own.

We had these neighbours though, and they had two of their own as well.

Their nosiness knew no bounds....I swear they had elasticated necks that could crane round corners!

All that separated us was flimsey chain-link fence and since the house was a naval married quarter we were unable to replace the fence with a nice 6' wooden one.

We were, however, allowed to plant what we liked.

So, in thinking about a solution to unwanted, nosey neighbours from hell we ploughed through gardening books and catalogues to find something that grew fast and vigoursly to provide a screen against prying eyes.

The perfect plant leapt out of the pages at us hitting us in the face.

RUSSIAN VINE!!

We were able to buy the aforementioned plant in our local Woolworths for £2.99. We bought two, one for each end of the fence.

And, yes, I have to report that they do live up to their reputation as being just about the fasted growing vegetation this side of a naff horror movie.

During the warmer spring and sumer months this 'triffid' grew and spread and grew and spread and grew and spread, covering the fence from bottom to well above the top.

To support it we just used gardener's twine and suspended it, washing line style, above the chain-link fence between the house wall and the back wall.

Towards the end of summer we had put paid to the nosey neighbours, they now needed a helicopter or something like to take them high enough to see over into ours.

And a profusion of pretty and delicatle small white flowers to boot.

Goal achieved!

Until, the weather turned and autumn began to turn into winter, suddenly we were left with this horrible twisted mess of dead wood.

With plenty of space for them to peer in through.

Oh, well at least we could hide from them again next summ
er we thought.

So we cut it all back and waited for to grow again the following year and hey presto! The damned neighbours moved out!

It did grow again, just as profusely as before, but this time we decided to manage the plant so that it just gave a nice summery display of white.

It meant a lot of pruning and chopping back but it really was a pleasant site.

That was over 10 years ago and I recently had cause to re-visit the area in which we once lived and guess what.....my Russian Vine is still there, its just about at the flowering stage and it covers not just our old fence and back wall, but the whole back walls of the two neighbouring houses as well.

Summary: