Talkback: Growing Russian vine

I have spent the last year living at my partners house and battling with a Russian Vine, I've had to trim it about 1ft every two weeks just to keep it where we wanted! You could almost hear it growing a couple of cm per day!! Fortunately now that its got colder its stopped its phenominal growing patterns. I would not recommend this plant unlesss you need to cover a huge expanse of wall and are prepared to put in the work to keep it from straying!! This doesnt need much soil, it will grow on North facing walls......however Monster is an understatement

I have moved into a house which, instead of a wall, has blue metal roofing panels for a fence. It is about 15 feet high and 25 feet long and very metal and very blue.. in fact it looks like a shipping container has landed in my garden... However, it makes our small garden very private (we are overlooked but you would never know it) and very dogproof (we have a newfoundland who shold be named hoodini). I was wondering if this russian vine would grow up the smooth metal surface or if it would need some sort of wires or something to cling to. It would be tricky to fix anything to it as it is only about 3 mm thick. It REALLY needs covering up!!!

Russian vine is not ideal for growing anywhere as it rapidly becomes a monster, spreading everywhere, strangling everything and invading your neighbours' gardens as well.

Virginia creeper is a much more docile plant and has the advantage of beautiful red leaves in autumn. It grows rapidly and will self-cling to a rough surface if given something to cling to initially.

i wish i had read these post before as 3 weeks ago i decided to plant 6 of these things in my garden thinking it would look nice but i think by the sounds of it ive been a ploker cause the only thing i no about gardening and trimming is chop it of at the bottom and the top falls down to and i havent got that big a garden so think they  will be in  the wheely bin soon !!!!!!! money well spent !!! I can here the wife now TOLD YOU SO!!! THAT WAS A WASTE OF MONEY!!!

I used to have 7 cherry trees in a row until I foolishly planted a russian vine close to them.  I now have only one as the others were smothered in just a few years and it took nearly a month to cut it all down.  I still see the odd shoot.  'orrible stuff.

@Hilarymac3 - Russian Vine is not self clinging. It is not going to solve your problem with the blue fence as it is not evergreen. An evergreen Jasmine or Ivy would be better. Russian Vine is not the monster others have said: problems arrive when people are lazy and do not care for it and prune it back in winter and spring.