Skip to Content

Best Vines to Grow on a Fence for Privacy

Vines are an exciting addition to your backyard. They can offer privacy, beauty, and shelter. Read on to learn more about creating privacy with a fence and vines.

Wooden fence with vines with red flowers

 Vines are an exciting addition to the backyard for any gardener. They can offer privacy, beauty, and shelter and provide excellent support for climbing plants. Growing vines on a fence can be one of the most straightforward additions and provide privacy to any area you may need. Vines can attach themselves to vinyl fences as they already provide an excellent surface to grow on while connected to the fence. As long as you keep the fence in good condition and don’t let anything interfere with it, you should have no problem using vines attaching themselves to a fence.

Read on to learn more about creating privacy with a fence and vines.

If you have a fence that’s not tall enough to keep prying eyes out of your yard, you can grow vines on it to create privacy.

Best Climbing Plants for Wooden Fences

Clematis

Wite brick wall with green climbing vine with purple flowers

This flowering vine is very hardy and requires little care once established. It blooms from early summer until fall in a variety of colors. If given plenty of sunlight and moisture, it will grow up to 10 feet in a single season.

Wisteria

Wooden fence with Wisteria purple flowered vine

This fragrant vine is prized for its beautiful flowers and lush foliage, which provides dappled shade. Wisteria comes in purple, white, and blue and has the tendency to grow rather quickly, so it’s essential to prune it carefully to maintain its size.

Honeysuckle

Yellow and white honeysuckle plant

Honeysuckle is an excellent choice for growing on fences because they are easy to grow and hardy in most climates. They bloom in shades of pink or orange, depending on the species, and provide rich cover for privacy.

Bougainvillea

Close up of a pink flowered Bougainville plant

Bougainvillea is a beautiful, colorful, and fast-growing vine that can grow to cover a fence in just a few months. The plant poses no threat to the fence itself and will quickly fill any voids between slats or pickets while providing you with some added privacy. Bougainvillea is tolerant of poor soil conditions drought and will grow well in tropical climates.

Trumpet Vine

Tall fence with orange flowered Trumpet Vine, blue sky

While the trumpet vine is an extremely easy plant to grow in full or partial sun, it is aggressive and can be invasive if you live in a suitable climate (zones 4 through 9). That being said, this flowering vine will produce bright orange or red flowers that attract all sorts of pollinators and hummingbirds. The trumpet vine can grow up to 30 feet tall and prefers moist soil. If you don’t want your fence wholly covered in foliage, plant a trumpet vine at least 6 feet away from it, so it doesn’t take over the entire space.

Are Vines Perfect for Privacy? Is Ivy Good for Privacy?

In my opinion, the answer depends on the type of privacy you are looking for personally. Ivy will help give you some privacy from the road and anyone walking by your property if you have a busy residential street. In addition, Ivy does a great job of filtering out street noise, so it can also help improve your quality of life if you live in a noisy area.

Will Planting Multiple Types of Ivy Give Me More Privacy?

You can undoubtedly plant multiple types of Ivy, but it will not make it grow faster. The only way to create more privacy is to have a thick ivy growth. This can be accomplished by either planting more ivy plants in a row or planting one type of Ivy.

Ivy is a vine that grows from a central root. The vine then spreads out in every direction at about 6 inches per year. If you have multiple vines coming from different plants, they may tangle around each other, but they are not competing for resources (water and nutrients) because they come from different plants.

The best way to create a thick ivy wall is to plant one type of Ivy and allow it to spread as far as possible.

Planting ivy can be an excellent way to increase privacy in your yard. And with so many varieties out there, you don’t have to sacrifice aesthetics for effectiveness. But if you’re wondering whether planting multiple kinds of Ivy helps, the answer is that while it might increase privacy slightly, it’s probably not necessary.

Which Vine Grows Fastest for Privacy?

Siver Lance Vine (Polygonum Aubertii)

Close up of a Silver Lace Vine with white flowers

The silver lace vine is a vigorous climber that grows 12-15 feet per year. The foliage is light green and heart-shaped with a lacy edge. It produces fragrant white flowers in late summer through early fall. Silver lace vine is hardy in zones 4 to 8 and grows best in full sun to partial shade.

Clematis (Clematis Spp.)

Clematis plant with large purple flowers and green leaves

Clematis is a fast-growing perennial vine that can reach 10-20 feet tall in one season! The showy flowers come in shades of pink.

Wisteria Vine

Wisteria Vine with purple flowers growing on black wrought iron fence, with blue sky and house behind fence, green grass in yard

The Wisteria vine is my favorite fast-growing vine for privacy. It is a beautiful plant, and it will grow from 10 – 15 feet every year. This makes it one of the fastest-growing plants in the world. The flowers of the Wisteria come in several different colors, including purple, white, blue, and pink. They smell lovely as well.

Hyacinth Bean (Dolichos Iablab)

Close up of a Hyacinth Bean plant with purple flowers and green leaves

It is a vigorous annual vine. Its flowers are purple, and its pods look like black-eyed peas. It grows 15 to 20 feet in a season.

Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) is a hardy vine that grows 10 to 20 feet each season. In the fall, its leaves turn red, and then it loses its leaves in winter.

How Tall Can Ivy Grow?

The English Ivy is the most common type of plant. It grows in woodlands and forests where it climbs up the trunks of trees or sprawls across the ground. In its natural habitat, English ivy can reach 80 feet in height.

If you want to grow Ivy on a trellis in your backyard, it will only reach about 15 feet tall. The plant will spread out about 6 feet from both sides of the lattice, but it won’t grow upward above that height.

How Long Does it Take for Ivy to Cover a Fence?

Once the Ivy has been planted, you can usually expect to see coverage after about three months. The Ivy will start growing slowly and then speed up as it establishes its roots. 

One of the best ways to make your yard look great is climbing vines. No matter how big or small your yard is, adding climbing vines will instantly beautify your property. 

How Long Does it Take for Ivy to Grow Up a Fence?

This is one of the reasons why you should be careful when trimming your fence and do this only when needed.

Ivy will take a while to grow up a fence, but once it gets started, it can grow up to nine feet in length in one year. This is the reason why you might want to consider trimming the Ivy so that it doesn’t grow too much and make your house look messy.

There are a few things that you should know before cutting the Ivy, though. For example, if you cut it too short, you will have to wait for about three months for it to grow back fully.

Conclusion

So many great vines can provide privacy and a beautiful green backdrop for your yard. Each vine offers a different texture and color, making choosing the one that’s right for your space difficult. However, once you have the plant where you want it, the maintenance is minimal — allowing you to sit back, relax, and enjoy all its benefits.