stone said: Attempting to grow runner beans is pretty much hit or miss for me too... Even when I get one to grow, I see few flowers and no beans.

Cypress vines and hyacinth beans are very good in the heat.

I also do well with speckled climbing lima beans, trail of tears beans, amberique bean,& Some of these yard long beans....

Do you eat your hyacinth beans? I've never grown them but might try this year. Looking for heat tolerant veggies given my experiences with peppers and maters last year - eg little or no fruit setting for the entire season. I'm in zone 7b, though I'm not sure how meaningful zones are anymore given they're based on averages. We get stupid high peaks here in the summer that didn't use to happen before climate change. The weather is too variable around here to just rely on zones.

I trellis my runner beans. When I lived in PR trellised veggies seemed to do better in the heat - as long as they had good leaf cover they seemed to sort of shade themselves. They slowed down and picked back up in cooler weather. Trellising also pretty much solved problems with diseases in the high humidity, which isn't a problem here. Its really dry. Not quite as dry as where I was in Nevada, but still - dry.

There's supposed to be a way to eat the hyacinth bean when immature, but I'm scared. Anything they say turns toxic with maturity... I leave on the vine.

I trellis my runner beans.

We are talking about plants to grow on the fence in this thread...

You see that I use tipis... but I also grow on the fence sometimes as well.

My tipi starts out as a home made tomato cage that I add bamboo poles to.

I always try to trellis up and over and back down, which this year I am trying to accomplish by setting T posts about 3' to 4' from my fence, then tying off back to the fence from the top of the T posts - to make kind of a tunnel under the trellis. I don't know whether or not they will continue to grow down the back side there (against the fence) because its a solid fence and will be self-shaded by the vines that run up over the T-posts and back to the top of the fence. But we'll see. It worked in PR in mitigating some heat effects, but its hotter and a lot drier here.

Hyacinth bean is commonly used in Indian cuisine. Its safe. The immature flat green pods are non-toxic, and there's a process for preparing the dried beans, which ARE toxic. Its a little involved for my taste and I'm not a fan of dried beans anyway. Just use the immature green pods and you're golden.

I like the trellis idea. Only undesirable "attachment" vines would grow up concrete, like English ivy. Not that all vines that grow via attachments are undesirable, but the attached roots eventually ruin walls, biting the hand that holds them. A trellis, or sections of trellis, would be especially visible against the fence and a pretty trellis can offer instant height appeal, even before covered with vines.

Hmm.

Maybe I'll just grow sunflowers and a few really big vines like wisteria, trumpet vine, and mustang grape. I can't trellis that much fence, but I could put a few poles up so big vines could grow up them to the top of the fence before growing sideways along the fence top.

You could. In my mind, there are several individual trellises, interplanted with other things. There may be different plants on different trellises, it's a hazy mental pic. Do what you want, of course, but do some research about plants before spending $ and effort. Look at pics of mature specimens. Enormous vines such as those can cause suckers to sprout out of the ground far away from the original area. Annuals (in your zone) like morning glories, cypress vine, hyacinth bean vine, and more dainty vines like Clematis (but not "sweet autumn Clematis) don't require heavy manual labor to control.

Along with sunflowers, also consider Zinnias & marigolds. Seeds are easy to find, they're not picky about soil, don't take long to get to blooming size, long bloom time.

I don't know what a Mustang Grape is but Wisteria and Trumpet vine will need a hefty trellis. Both really heavy plants. And, they both travel. I had a wisteria climbing up the side of my house one year (I had not planted a wisteria). I followed the stem back to my neighbors house. This is not significant unless I add we both live on 1.5 acre lots. That wisteria stem had traveled about 500 ft.!

Isn't the castor bean a source of ricin?

Trumpet Vine will do the same and travel great distances. It also keeps sending out runners everywhere and will travel under any amount of concrete. About 5 blocks from me a house has 5 Trumpet Vines trained into trees and they do look beautiful when in bloom. But there are hundreds and hundreds of smaller ones coming up everywhere in his neighbors' lawns, on both sides of him, that all they can do is keep mowing over them. Which is like pruning and forcing more growth, so it never ends. It also will break through foundations, I've had it growing in the dark garage here. After 7 years of trying I still haven't been able to kill it off yet.

Try Russian vine, clematis montana or kiwi fruit. If kiwi, you'll need both male & female plants to get fruit. Minimum trellising for all. A simple cross-wired framework will do.

I envy you your concrete wall! I love Trumpet Vine (and so do bees and Hummingbirds) and would love to have a wall like yours to grow them against. They will attach themselves, so no need to worry about supports. They do have a reputation for being aggressive, but can be removed if you see them coming up where they're not wanted. The secret is getting them removed as soon as you spot them. They can grow to 12', but are easily trimmed back at season's end. They flower on new growth, so wait until after they've bloomed to trim them. Good luck!

Murky said: Trumpet Vine will do the same and travel great distances. It also keeps sending out runners everywhere and will travel under any amount of concrete.

Yeah... But the trumpet vine is native and supposed to be here.
If you could see what Chinese wisteria does down here in the deep south... you would stop thinking that wisteria and trumpet vine were equivalent.
When trumpet vine grows up a pine tree... It grows straight up... provides flowers for the hummingbirds and generally is a joy to have around.
When a wisteria climbs a tree... it wraps around like barbed wire and strangles the tree.

Trumpet vine is a hassle in the tilled garden... impossible to control if you get it in the veggie garden...

Wisteria is a huge problem even where the soil is hard and dry... will grow across the lawn just under the mower blades, sending roots down at each joint... roots go down 30 ft!

Down in the south... wisteria cover entire wooded tracts... and destroys the forest.

The trumpet vine in comparison actually behaves in a similar setting.

Still not sure I'd want either on my fence... if there was a chance that it could reach a tilled garden.

I'd still want to grow an annual self sowing vine.

How about a nice swan gourd? They have gorgeous evening blooming white flowers... Or... maybe a nice moonflower vine (ipomoea alba).

I live in zone 5 and have sandy soil, so I don't know, but I was wondering about a thick swath of sunflowers. They get nice and tall, the seeds should be cheap and the birds would love the seed as the flowers mature. Quick thought that may not be at all applicable to your situation.

I would love a wisteria in my yard. I have tried growing it twice here and both times it has died. I would love to know the secret to getting it to grow and survive.

Call it a weed and make it think you want it to die. That should make it un-killable.

What about crossvine? NO to trumpet vine-impossible to control.

Pyewacket said: I don't appreciate being painted as "hysterical", not one little bit.

I'll take the CDC over a random web page.

https://emergency.cdc.gov/agen....

According to them ingestion of castor bean CAN result in ricin poisoning.

It isn't "hysterical" to suggest being cautious about kids and dogs exposure to it.

Sheesh.

I think the 'hysteria' was referring to the idea that touching it will make you sick. I have never heard that, I have grown castors for years, and handling them, getting them on my skin has never given me any reaction at all. I suppose it may affect everyone differently, I certainly wouldn't smear it on my skin on purpose, but then I don't do that with any of my plants... I've never had issues w any pets or kids bothering it.

I'd plant cannas.

@Frillylily It is irritating to the skin for many people. Not all - even poison ivy doesn't cause a rash in EVERYBODY, my dad was immune but I'm really susceptible to poison ivy.

Rue is another plant that can be irritating to the touch. It doesn't seem to be irritating to me, but it is to some people. My grandkid may be one of them. So I didn't get any more rue when mine died last year, and won't until he's old enough to understand a warning.

Milkweed sap is irritating to some people. Again I don't seem to be among that group. I'm planting milkweed anyway because you have to actually break the plant to get it on your skin, so I feel its relatively safe.

All parts of the castor bean plant are toxic, so the warning for dogs is apt if you've got a dog that chews everything in sight. My son has a terrier like that. A fatal dose is far less for a 6 lb dog than it is for a 180 lb adult human male. Or female, for that matter.

Like I said, its an impressive specimen, but its not something that ought to be planted without a bit of consideration. I'm not telling anybody to never plant it or to uproot it if you've got it. So yes, the term "hysteria" was over the top and yes, it was insulting.

I guess I consider 'toxic' to mean put you in the hospital near death, and irritating to be well, just a nuisance. Yes I get poison ivy reaction sometimes and it's pretty uncomfortable but I never feared I'd die if I merely touched it. Saying a plant is 'toxic to touch' or 'irritating to touch' I suppose depends on how the reader interprets that. I am not even aware of anyone who was ever hospitalized from merely having castor bean foliage touch them as they passed by or worked near it. Is that a thing? Perhaps I have escaped death many times and had no idea With that said, I am actually planting out my castor seeds this week, as mothers day is near and that means no more frost for me, yay