Bought a new one. It was supposed to be 6 ftbut it is only 5 ft. At least, it is wider and taller for my climetis.
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Definitely a trellis and vine. The Viticella cultivars are the longest blooming of any Clematis.
Dax
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There is this Kiwi that does do those things.One issue that might be iffy is the zone rating of 6.
I had one once,on an obelisk type trellis.The fruit were probably smaller than normal sized ones. Brady
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What kind of protection it needs in winter - roots or vine itself? If it is vine above ground that freezes out, this is a problem indeed.
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Iâm in zone 8,so freezing wasnât the problem.Some kind of green beetles that fed at night were. Brady
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There is clumping bamboo that does not spread. Clematis is nice but the ones I have are slow growing. Perhaps heavy fertilizer would speed it up.
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could try planting sunflower.
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Autumn flowering clematis is an important nectar source for honeybees around here. Lets them fill up one last time before winter. Honey is edible!
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Build a trellis and run some grape vines up and over it.
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With half day sun? Is it enough?
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Yeah, look for a disease-resistant (mildew/fungal rots) variety.
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There are a couple vigorous honeyberry varieties that get to ~8â and do fine with only morning sun. Elderberry should work. I think you could still get some production out of a grape in that location.
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Honeyberry is what I was researching yesterday. My issue with them to find bushes big enough for planting not to be killed by hostas on year one. Those guys are sure capable of suppressing even young oak trees⌠For Elderberry , I never tried it. Back in Russia there was only red relative of Elderberry, not edible and with pretty strong unpleasant smell. I kind of canât step over that memory! 
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It sounds like you may need to dig down and put some type of underground barrier (cinder blocks?) to stop the hostas from encroaching and hampering whatever you put in place from growing.
If you havenât already commited to something else, what about planting a few (maybe 3) pears and training them as a small belgian fence? You would need to put some support up for it to start with, but ultimately it could be self supporting.
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Can you do pears on the espalier? I thought the pears are too big for them. I like the pear ideaâŚ
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Sambucus nigra european elderberry in 3 yrs they will be 12-15ft tall and wide. maintenance free. good berries for wine, pies and syrup and lots of antioxidants too! can get up to 6ft. tall the 1st. season! hard pressed to find anything that grows this fast!
the black lace cultivar is beautiful in the yard with its purple lacy foliage with pink flowers! bees and birds love them too and they smell soo good in flower! bugs and diseases donât bother them. i have 4 of them in my yard. you can control its size easily by pruning. wonât slow them down at all!
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see my post above!
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Sure, pears make good espalier. For your situation, I would suggest something like Seckel or Harrow Sweet which both fruit at a younger age and will then settle down so that you wonât have to be constantly prunning them back. Seckel is also somewhat self pollinating and also usually a smaller tree plus the smaller fruits are more to scale of a smaller espalier, so is probably a good candidate. But you could also just see what you can get cheaply this time of year since youâll need more than one tree and then graft in other varieties.
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Any chance to post picture of whole elderberry tree. What I can see in Google is just leaves and berries. Also, does it create many suckers ?
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Elderberries can grow too large for the space you have. Hardy kiwi might be good, they grow fast and do provide shade. They are not very precocious, my 4th year vine has not flowered yet. You can graft male branches on female plant. Honeyberries and black currants are also good. Red currants can be trained into espalier on the trellis, but they are more slow growing. Bush cherries like carmine jewel? Cornelian cherries trained as espalier? Pawpaw will be a good tree. It grows slow the first three years, but after that the slow growing care free pawpaw is a benefit.
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