I am a complete novice gardener. I have just moved into a new apartment with a 15' South-facing 2nd Floor balcony in London, UK. I have a few things that I would like to do with the plants on the balcony but absolutely no experience so any advice would be much appreciated.

- Screening... As the balcony is south facing and covers the entire width of the front wall of my apartment (which has floor to ceiling glass doors) on clear days the sun absolutely pours in. I therefore need plants that will act as a kind of screen or curtain of green to shade the balcony and the apartment and provide some year-round privacy.

- Climbers... There is a heavy steel structure around the top of the balcony (see accompanying pics) that I would like to grow plants around. I'm thinking that I would grow the plants in either window boxes on the waist-height hand railing or from floor level planters, and create a wire structure from of the balcony up to the structure to give the plants something to climb up. I thought that a grape vine might be nice, but would also love to have something fragrant like Jasmine, Honeysuckle or even both. However, I want year-round coverage as even the winter sun is quite strong.

- Grown my own... I would love to grow at least some of my own food: herbs, veg, fruit from long planters that would need to be no deeper (back to front) than about 12"-15" and about 24" tall and about 3' wide.

- 'Self watering'/irrigation system... I travel quite a bit and sometimes for 3 to 4 weeks in a stretch, so would ideally like to create some kind of irrigation system that would keep things ticking over while I am away. There is a rain water drain pipe within arm's reach of the corner of the balcony and I thought that there may be a way of setting up a water butt and then have that connected to a series of hoses that then fed out to the various planters. (I am very interested in the 'Self-watering method' where the planter sits upon a reservoir of water and a pocket of air, and the water is 'wicked-up' into the soil by capillary action. Like this... http://youtu.be/hIqssok6iXI?list=PL86AC58B96094A73B. But I want to use stylish (ideally black) long rectangular containers rather than ugly plastic catering tubs.

Anyway my questions are as follows...

- Will I be able to support the plants I want on south-facing balcony?
- What are the 'school boy errors' that I should avoid?
- Does anyone have any experience of the type of watering system I mention above? If so do you have any advice?
- My funds are limited so does anyone have good but cheap plant/fertiliser/gardening container suppliers in or around London?

OK I think thats about it. As I said I am an utter novice so any help at all - however basic it may seem to you - would be much appreciated. Thank you.