Q: How can I quickly hide my patio behind a wall of flowering vines? Morning-glory is just too common, and I want blooms that stay open all day.

-Andrea Handel, Pasadena, Calif.

A: Topping my list of uncommon climbers is the passionflower (passiflora), with blossoms that look like something you’d find while snorkeling through a tropical reef. The vine speedily puts out masses of foliage, while scrambling over almost anything. It’s a snap to start training it up nylon or wire mesh by coaxing a few tendrils onto the grid. Like all the vines that follow, passionflower is a perennial in your frost-free climate. Some are quick to grow from seed (started indoors around the time you’d start tomatoes), they work well as annuals in the North. Many are also available as ready-grown plants.

Next on my list is Dutchman’s-pipe, Aristolochia gigantea. Like its better-known cousin from the southeastern United States, A. macrophylla, this South American native has large dark green leaves that provide utmost privacy. But its “pipes” are much more impressive: meerschaum-shaped flowers, 6 to 8 inches across, lined in maroon with veins of creamy white. A. gigantea flowers year-round in warm climates like yours (and in greenhouses). In the north, this rapid grower blooms from mid-July till first frost.

A daintier alternative is climbing snapdragon, Asarina procumbens, which has charming tubular flowers, usually a bluish purple, but sometimes pink or white (to me they look more like foxgloves than snapdragons). The hairy gray-green leaves are small, and the plant unfurls masses of soft, fine tendrils that clasp a trellis, mesh, or nearby plants. Slow to get started, asarina is nonetheless vigorous. Over the five-month growing season in my zone-6 garden, it covers an area about 6 feet square. The last of my annuals to die, it is still in bloom when frost has shut down everything except kale, endive, and parsley.

Though the black-eyed Susan vine, Thunbergia alata, has similar verve and delicate foliage, its abundant flowers are much more dramatic. A good 2 to 3 inches across, they are a cheerful yellow-orange that stands out against the leaves. The “black eyes” are really rich chocolate-brown throats.

I think of cup-and-saucer vine, Cobaea scandens, as an annual counterpart to wisteria—not because their flowers look alike (cobaea’s purplish blossom is a puffy 2-inch cup resting on a little saucer), but because both have large, compound leaves and grow with amazing speed: In my garden, cobaea clambers to the top of an old pear tree in a single season.

Spanish flag, Ipomoea lobata (Mina lobata), is in the morning-glory family, though you’d never guess it from the flowers: Small and tubular, they stay open all day. Flower buds fade from scarlet to yellow, Spain’s national colors. When fully open, the bloom is creamy white. In flower from midsummer till frost, I. lobata shares its morning-glory kin’s zest for climbing practically any support.

Bonnier Corporation