HelpfulGardener.com

Good morning all,

I would like to shade my patio by building an arbor. The size of the arbor would be 22'x6'x6' (L x W x H). My hardiness zone is 9a and my heat zone is 9 (Los Angeles). My patio is on the roof top so I have to grow the vines in a container. I would also like the vine to be an evergreen.

1) What kind of a vine would you suggest?
2) How big should the container be in order to cover that space?

Thank you all in advance,
Demetris

Hi and welcome to the forum! To start with, don't you have a way to make your arbor a little taller than 6 ft high? If it is to shade your patio, I take it people are meant to be walking under it. Lots of people are more than 6 ft tall. I am not, but even so a 6 ft "roof" is a little claustrophobic. 8 ft would be a much better height.

So evergreen vines:

Personally I would go with jasmine. There are several different evergreen jasmines, star jasmine, pink jasmine, Carolina jasmine (which is not a true jasmine). They have a heavenly fragrance! They are quick growing and will eventually cover your area well, without getting too huge and heavy or taking over the yard.

But there's several other choices: evergreen clematis, morning glory (watch out!, invasive), cape honeysuckle, creeping fig, pink bower vine, passion flower, crossvine, evergreen honeysuckle vine,

How big should "the" container be to cover the space? If you want the space covered any time this decade, it is not "the" container. You want a large container by each support post. You could even do different vines in different containers. Here is clematis and jasmine growing together:



(though to be perfectly honest, the purple clematis is not the evergreen one. Evergreen clematis has smaller white flowers.)

But tons of possible combinations. Here's passion flower and jasmine growing together:

I agree with RBG. A six-foot ceiling is a bit low. Even folks that aren't six feet tall will be ducking when the plants grow over the top and you get some 'sagging' of leaves and vines into the tunnel space. Seven feet would be better; eight feet will keep that airy feeling that I expect you'd want in an arbor.

I would go with multiple containers -- maybe one every so many feet or one at the base of each column support. As for the size, you'd have to decide on what vines you want to grow and see what space requirements they need. You'll probably end up with 12"x12"x12" or bigger containers.

Thank you both for your replies.

Yes you are right. I mistakenly wrote 6' instead of 9ish I am 6'2'' myself so yeah, a 6' arbor won't do

Demetris