Can anyone suggest a good list of evergreen edible vines that will not cause any damage to a colourbond metal fence (by being too woody and growing in between the fence and the supports) and won't upset neighbors but will still block at least some road noise. As long as it's not too slow growing or too hard to grow in South Aus. Thanks.
I think you will find that in order to block road noise, you will need a solid fence. I dont know your climate, but have always considered south Australia to be really warm. I have been trying to promote the idea that we also need to grow locally native species, perhaps you could consider this as a solution, especially if you could find one that also has flowers suitable for the honey bee, or even more importantly, a native bee.
Thanks, it's to grow on a fence, I was hoping for edible but it's hard to find one that's also evergreen.
Just had a thought, you could look at passionfruit or banana passionfruit. Its evergreen and edible and it my be a bee friendly plant as well.
Be careful with passion fruit growing directly against/on the fence. We grew one when I lived in Adelaide and it did exactly what you were afraid of and started pulling the fence apart. Eventually our neighbour whipper-snipped under the fence, killing the vine by severing the stems at ground level. Can you create a post and wire trellis in front of the fence to take the weight of the vine? Also keep in mind colour bond will get very hot in summer and may burn or heat stress plants nearby, depending on how much direct sun it gets. I also agree with Mischief, growing a vine on a fence is unlikely to block road noise. You need tall shrubs or trees for that.
Any vine dense enough to make any difference in ambient conditions like noise will be heavy enough to make problems for the fence. I echo the advice elsewhere on this thread. Either train to a separate trellis or find room for shrubs/trees.