California Gardening: Mixing plants in planter - concerned about roots conflicting, 1 by crackd

crackd wrote:
As you can see in the attached picture, I have a planter made out of 8" deep x 6" wide cinder blocks, that wraps around the edge of my patio. The way the planter works is every other column of blocks is filled with cement up to the last row of blocks at the top. So the top blocks of all columns are hollowed out w/ every other column hollowed for root expansion.

I'd like to plant creeping fig vine so that it can creep up the wood wall, and I would also like to plant some sort of bush, fern or grass type plant. The will see sun depending on the time of day (sun rises on left side of patio, circles around and sets on right side). I like ferns and tropical-like plants. I'm in Southern California near the coast.

Any suggestions on types of plants that will work for what I want?

Thanks!