If your priority is cover up quickly there are some truly triffid-like plants. The two top contenders in the speed stakes are:
- Polygonum baldschuanicum or Russian vine, also called the mile-a-minute plant. The Spanish name for this is 'el vuelo del novio' - the flight of the bridegroom! All aptly describe the growth rate of this climber. It has a pretty froth of white flowers in spring and early summer.
- The deep blue morning glory, or ipomoea, is often regarded as a weed. Its rate of growth and rapid colonisation makes this understandable. More refined members of the same family include a pretty lilac number which is also fairly rampant, the much smaller annuals 'Heavenly Blue' and 'Scarlet O'Hara' which is a soft dusky pink, and even a milk chocolate coloured bloom.
Second place in terms of growth rate are honeysuckle and passion vines.
- The honeysuckles, madreselva in Spanish, are well known for their wonderful perfume. They will grow in a fair degree of shade and tolerate some fairly inhospitable territory.
- The passion vines are a large family and range from huge growers to dainty, delicate delights. Passifiora edulis is one of the biggest and its exotically flavoured purple wrinkled fruit are a delicious excuse for growing this one. Passifiora caerulea has typical blue/white flowers and passifiora nanuicata is a striking red.
- Bignonia ricosoleana, with masses of pink trumpet flowers, is often deciduous unless in a very sheltered spot.
- Campsis grandifiora, the trumpet vine, is deciduous and a self-clinger with orange or apricot coloured trumpets.
- Wisteria is underused in Spain. It has hanging racemes of lilac flowers and fresh green foliage in springtime.
Slightly more restrained growth rates are climbers that include:
- Solandra, the chalice vine, is magnificent if a fairly inflexible grower. Cut back hard at the end of the year to encourage glossy, tropical-looking leaves and lots of golden cupped flowers.
- Thunbergia grandifiora has beautiful blue/lilac flowers.
- Almost all of the bognonia family are worth growing. Australis has masses of creamy white bell flowers. Venusta has sheets of tubular orange flowers. Jasminoides have glossy foliage and pretty pink or white trumpet flowers with a deeper throat.
- The jasmine family is vast and varied. Most waft their wonderful perfume around on sultry summer evenings. The oficinale is the common one. Polyanthemum smothers itself in pink tinged flowers. Also well worth trying are azoricum, sambac and the pretty primrose yellow mesnyi. Chilean jasmine, Mandevilla suaveolens, is not strictly a jasmine but has large jasmine-type flowers.
- Other climbers include bougainvilleas and climbing roses. The banksian thornless rose is a little stunner bearing clusters of tiny flowers especially enchanting in soft yellow. For foliage only try ivies, virginia creepers and grapevines.
- Clematis are becoming easier to find here. The montana and the large-flowered hybrids require a cool root run. Likewise the stephanotis with its scented, waxy blooms.
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