Texas Gardening: Gazebo climber needed, 1 by jenepat

jenepat wrote:
Hi all! I'm new to DG & this board, but have LOVED reading the various threads so far. We moved into our house almost a year ago & I'm just now starting to really get into landscaping/planting/etc. One area we'd really like to do something else with is this gazebo.

It currently has climbing roses around the back side, but they get looking so tacky & aren't our favorite. So we'd like to find a different climber to partially cover the back side & curve over the top. I think an evergreen vine that blooms would be nice. After seeing pictures, I've been leaning towards the crossvine, but am a little concerned with how thick and unruly it seems to get. I wonder if I could keep it under control with some good pruning? Or if anyone else has some suggestions, I'd love to hear them!!!

We also have two large evergreen pines (don't know officially what they are), two Golden Euonymus, and a couple of other rose bushes (one pretty healthy, one not) surrounding the front of the gazebo that we aren't fond of. The evergreens seem too wintery for our sunny backyard with a pool, but I like the height they add. I think we'd like to go to a more tropical theme, but that may be hard to do in North Texas? But if we could find something else that could grow to be 8-12 ft tall would be great. Any ideas? We'd also like to replace the Golden Euonymus and rose bushes - so it's really a clean slate.

Another issue we're dealing with is that we'll need to periodically stain or treat the wood deck & lattice (as we desperately need to do now), so I'm concerned with how we'll do this if it has a vine growing on the back? We plan to treat it as soon as we remove the rose vine & other items, before replanting the area. But eventually it will need to be treated again....

Sorry this is so lengthy - I look forward to any suggestions you guys have!