Quick growing bush for cover?

hi Clover, i had an area like this at the end of my garden, it is still not completely removed from sight, but hopefully once the plants grow it will be, duing the summer months. but i had to plant a few feet away from the ugly shed i have as it has thick concrete in front of it, so i went for a couple of small trees, a Rhus and an Acer. only thing is they are not evergreen, so you can see the ugly shed in full glory this time of year. we've painted and fixed the shed so it dose'nt look as bad, and i like the trees where they are tho so not going to change them, and i have now put a mini greenhouse one side - still ugly but a bit better than the shed. but i need to come up with a way of covering the shed. i have used willow screening in another area of my garden, to cover an ugly bit from next door, but this is'nt as focal as this bit at the end of my garden, and it will have my daughters play house in front of it - have a look at my photos if you like and you will see my dilema!. - this is where you have me at an advantage, it looks as if you have soil at the base of your shed and fence, which opens up a whole new world of possiblities, you could put in some clematis on the fence and shed as well as on any shrubs that you plant there. and my advice would be go for evergreen! some good ones would be, Ceanothus, Aucuba, Viburnum tinus, are just a few that have all year interest and are relitively fast growing. hope this helps good luck!

thanks for the reply I think the photo is not very clear but in between my garden & neighbours fence is a stream so need a thickish typ of growth without any means of support but it is a sunny position
thanks

ahhh so i gues climber would be out then, you could still go with the evergreen option, you should be able to get clematis growing through them, the only problem with that would be pruning! good luck Sassy, will be interesting to see what you come up with.

I know it's not a shrub, but why not grow one (or more) of the Euonymus varieties? They do scramble over the ground and up a fence too. They have the advantage of being evergreen and attractive. You could, I think, plant small- flowered Clematis to scramble with them, or if you don't like that idea, try Clematis x jouiniana, which is a herbaceous variety - this also would scramble all over the bank and can be trained up against the fence too. You do have to cut it back in the spring, though. I have it, and you can see its picture in the 'My garden' section on my page. It's very different from the usual types of Clematis, but attractive and definitely fast growing!.

I'd also suggest you paint whatever you're trying to hide with a wood preservative. All the fencing round my garden is painted a colour called 'Forest Green' and it does a very good job because the fence 'disappears' into the foliage

thanks for all your suggestions but the fence etc is not mine it is across the stream from my land so I can't grow anything that needs support I had wondered about some bamboo varieites but don't want they running wild?

bamboo would work, although i think most are not evergreen, and if you make sure you get a clump foarming variety rather than one that sets runners they are quite well behaved.

The other possibility if the soil is moist is to plant things which lose their leaves in the autumn to reveal coloured stems. I'm thinking here of the dogwoods such as cornus alba 'Sibirca' (red stems), C.sanguinea 'Winter Beauty' (red at the top, yellow-orange lower down), and C.stolonifera 'Flaviramea' (yellow-green). This would make a feature for the winter rather than have just green leaves all year round. Instead of cutting the plants to the ground each spring, just remove one third to a half so the fence is still screened during the growing season

I didn't like the way our kids' playhouse stood out almost in the middle of the garden like a sore thumb when it was first erected, so I planted a couple of cotoneaster seedlings which I found elsewhere in the garden along one side. They grow quickly (I cut ours 2 or 3 times during summer to keep them flat to the wall and to the height I want), are evergreen and have tiny flowers in summer followed by red berries all winter - a great performer. In summer I train something like nasturtium, sweet pea or morning glory up through the cotoneasters, but this year will be putting in a perennial rambler rose. Oh, and I also stapled some inexpensive brushwood screening to the roof to cover the ugly black felt and resemble thatching. Hope something from this may be helpful to you.