Non blooming Clematis

Around here the wild ones grow on the forest floor and head up the trees. I suspect they don't have much fertilizer but soft mulchy leaf litter and moisture. pic on following page

http://www.pallottine.org.au/millgrove_flora_1.htm

The one over the little chapel gate is now a beautiful bridal veil of flowers. (our spring)

http://images.google.com.au/imgres?...s+white&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&cr=countryAU&sa=N
Liz

 

I'll post some of my photos as well as soon I figure out how. It is more getting access to my photos as DS 16 has servers in his bedroom and I have to get his help. Yes, he is a computer nerd and goes to a Professional Technical Chartered Highschool and even helps his school out with their servers.

But Mom is usually the last one to be helped! :( Plus I never see him, as he is working his servers in his room and earning money. Or problem solving...

I think as soon as I'm done working outside for hours on end. I'll be able to get more help.
Also another saying about Clematis is 1st year, they sleep, 2nd year they creep and
3rd year they explode! I can't recall if there is a rhymning word for that. Heehee.
But that is the general rule. Then there is the size of the plant in the first place! If they were itty bitty plants and you can't recall even where you planted it, then it takes longer. LOL Learned from experience from ordering from a catalog the itty bitty ones when I was ignorant and hadn't found garden wedsites online. Probably because I didn't go online.

I use to think that was a waste of time and was a Nervous Nelly the first time I did an email. Funny how life changes! ;-)

 

I hear that Karalyn, I remember those days when everyone was
telling me to get a PC. and I thought thats way to expensive thats
a luxury that just wasn't in the budget, eventually they got to me
and I'm so glad. I really enjoy all this knowledge although now
it seems its harder to retain than years ago. I really like the 1st,
year, 2nd year, 3rd year quote. That should help with retaining
info. One I heard but don't know if is true is: If it blooms before
June don't prune. Makes some sense too for the early bloomers.
If you post your pics on a site somewhere, put it up so I can enjoy your hard work. I would enjoy talking with you any time.
What zone are you in? I'm in zone 5. Take care fellow Clematicholic.

 

Liz, in the states we have a plant call Goats Beard but it is not
a vine. I have it planted in my yard. It sends out white plumes I
didn't get a picture of it this year, but it likes the shade. Its about
3 feet tall. You are really down under as they say. Thanks for
pics and info. I don't think it would grow here we have very hot
summers and really cold winters. When I saw the pics of the
distant shot it reminded me of something we have here they call
a Silver Lace vine. A neighbor had one and it got huge. It was
beautiful on an arbor and bloomed in the fall. It is our fall now
but this year it has been very warm today it was 77. That is very
unusual for Oct. Thanks again I enjoyed the pics. tremendously.

 

Posting pictures here is really easy - and there are instructions somewhere... but for now, click on "post reply" and go to the second window down, where it says 'manage attachments'. Click on browse, it will take you to your own computer files... click on the picture you want, and then don't forget to "upload".

 

Okey here I go. I'll give this a try. Pics. first then I'll see what
happens and go from there. Hang in with me. Patience please.

 

The first and third one are the my little newbie that I have waited
4 yrs. for. The middle one is an established vine that I have never had a bit of trouble with since the day I put it in. Blooms
realiably spring and then again in fall every year. So now I want
to see if my little newbie will bloom in the spring too. You can see
the difference in the centers. Left and right is a wine color. While
the established is very soft colored. Other than that they look
pretty much the same, even though the tag said it would be pink.
Maybe someone switched a tag. Some people like to play jokes
sometimes. Your instructions were great. I'm not the quickest
study but I got through it and surprized myself. Thank you for
great directions and for sharing the knowledge.

 

Usually the tags aren't switched for a joke, it is usually done by the store's staffers that aren't knowledgeable. Or back when they were loading them up on the shipping truck those helpers put the tag on the wrong plant.

I have a red/orange trumpet vine now, instead of a yellow one, which I thought I was getting.

 

I had to leave my posting because the doorbell rang. It was two young men from a tree trimming service that Idaho power company hires to trim trees close to wires.

They are going to take down my Silver Maple tomorrow that has scale and is too big to fight with. Yippee! Then I will have a new place to place some new plants and trees that I want there! I will miss the shade, but there still is a pine tree close by that is just as tall. But has to be trimmed once in a while around the electrical wires.

Oh, the dreaming I'll be doing this winter! It was all about trees and conifers that got me to UBC in the first place!

I thought I posted some pictures here, because my son helped me get started. I can't remember either! LOL

 

Clematis are really not touchy even in Zone 5 once they get established and pass through a couple of summers and a winter. After that they are yours unless abused. I have some growing even on the north side of the house in Zone 5 and once established they continue to blossom even with minimum attention.
The touchy point for me has been its survival through the first winter. The plants we buy usually at the Garden Centres or other places are already stressed in late spring or mid-summer and if stressed plants are planted late it may not store enough strength before the start of fall and winter and may not survive. Once I see a clematis sprouting after the first winter I know that it is going to stay (most of the time).
The only clematis that did not bloom for me were the ones that I bought at a horticultural show & plant sale at Algonquin College here in Ottawa. It turned out that those were only clematis-like ornamental foliage vines and not clematis.

 

When I buy plants I usually leave them in pots about 6 months or repot them for a while. This is to harden them off. Often plants are in artificial light and heating conditions and putting them straight out makes them unhappy or will even kill them. I have a sheltered spot that I keep them in sort of like a quarantine (sp) station.

Liz

 

Karalyn, I once had a really old silver maple at a place we lived.
You couldn't put your arms around it it was so big. I tried everway
I could to get that tree taken down to open up the yard for sun for
plantings. My neighbor had a core taken from it by someone he
knew at the university, and they said it was over 200 years old.
We had some friends take some limbs off of it for fire wood. I called the phone company, and the electric because there were
so many wires and 2 garages were on each side of it. No one would take it down all they would do is trim what interphered with
their wires etc. It would have cost over $1200.00 at that time to
have it taken down. So guess what? That tree is still standing.
It looks lopsided now because one side has been trimmed more than the other side but it's still there and will probably be there after I'm gone. It's seen native americans and the settlement of a town. I remember it as a messy tree, it sent those swirling seed down. Well enjoy and take some before and after pics. Planning the next garden is the most fun. I can't do any more of those, I just put in six 6ft. blue spruce on a mound to block out where the county widened the creek bed. We used to have river willows. Kinda funny how a drainage creek from the farmers of 1887 became a river and water shed when the DNR, and politicians got involved. But the river (creek) is wide now and they didn't beat me, I put up the mound and 6 blue spruce to block the parking lot and view of some apartment buildings.Then on my side of the hill I put some perrinials with an arched trellis. It turned out okey.I think the pics. are in the main PC I just looked and they are not in my little laptop here. Can't wait to hear what you have planned. Good luck, there is no rush and you have the whole winter to curl up with books and read.

 

When the plants are left in the pots are they the same little plastic
pots you buy them in or do you put them in a clay pot?
Something else I just thought about was when it did bloom finally
it was after we had days of rain and some of the surrounding counties had been declared disasters because of flooding. Not where I am but that was a lot of rain that particular week. Maybe
that was all it really needed was more moisture than I was giving
it under that eve and this last summer to fully mature. So now
the question is to let it bloom in spring or cut it back I guess it's
just a wait and see game. I do need an area to nurse or incurbate
though I'll have to think of a spot for that and possibly a soaker hose in that area like I've done in some of the other areas saves a lot of time watering in hot sun. Thank you all very much.

 

Mostly unless very pot bound I leave them in the pot I bought them in. Re keeping them in a safe place. I have created a sawdust/woodshaving bed. Just used some board and bricks and filled it with wood shaving then sank the pots into it. Reason we have water restrictions here and it is a good way to keep the pots cool and sourround them with a moisture filled micro climate. Mulching is a wonderful thing. Given that our wild clematis grow on the leaf litter of the forest (bush floor). They then climb up the trees to the light and flower in the canopy. Yours would probably benefit from mulching as well.

Liz
Liz

 

Well, the Silver Maple is down! Yahoo! I did take pictures! It took the guys at least 5 hours to take it down. The had to be careful of different wires, and even with their carefulness, one limb went a different direction and pulled down the neighbors cable tv wire. The guys said this happens all the time and when they were done the cable guys came over and re attached the wire. I believe they didn't come sooner since the wire could be brought down again.

Now there is huge pile of scale infested limbs with the white sticky honey dew on them and then some very nice sliced tree trunk stumps that will make some good sitting arrangement in my landscaping and even around a campfire. And on top of that some good chopping blocks and a neat place to put some POTTED CLEMATIS on. LOL

I will have to let my garden helper know which ones I want to keep as I offered the tree cut wood for his family's stove fireplace. But he is welcome to the other chopped up silver maples we did earlier this spring.

I paid $550.00 for this to be done and worth every dollar. My sons would have needed some apprentice ship work to do what they did.

Later they will come by and put some type of chemical or something to help the roots to die off. This fee didn't include the removal of the wood nor the root system.

And yes, this tree was messy and I didn't trust the fallen leaves anymore since they all had baby scales on them. I do miss the privacy it gave, but I will get use to it as there really isn't that much to see. It mainly gave some privacy from the new subdivision that has 2 story houses. And the only thing I can see of my neighbor next door that had the cable line brought down, is his diningroom window and he can see our corner kitchen window which really doesn't show much as normally there would be a kitchen sink built there, but the builders of this house, put the kitchen sink in an island bar so that the dishwasher, etc. can look out into the back yard garden and to the family room/diningroom area where the family would be or company.

I use the two corner windows for rooting plants on the window sills and would love someday to have the greenhouse type window put in.

Nothing is that private with that neighbor anyway, as part of the fencing is a long tall chainlinked fence to keep their wire terriers in. Big dogs and they love me! They can't get enough attention. First dog was a female puppy, then they had her bred, and have kept a male puppy who is almost as tall as his mother. Katie, the female gets jealous of her pup's attention I give him and bites on his collar/neck? Pretty funny!

Plus they (the dogs) love my Sheltie and want to play with him.

We're on an acre each so there is not problem, it is the new two story houses behind our backyards that are very close to our fenceline due to the developer not giving them much of a front or backyard. And these are the upper end houses of the subdivision.

Anyway, I have clematis and a climbing rose that actually will take off climbing now that the tree is down and there won't be a problem. And along the rest of the chainlinked fence we will eventually extend our wooden fence as all of that bare area except for grass will be full of new conifers, JMaples, clematis etc.

I have the plants, just not the ground prepared for planting them in.

I do plant my clematis into the ground if I have to hurry and get them protected, or just put them under some shrubbery or roses close to protected areas from wind and extra cold.

Some are just put in sheltered areas on my deck, empty ponds or tanks, etc. I would do the sawdust thing too if I had some, but now I've had a great collection of shredded leaves and pine needles from the neighbors and my trees. So thing are better. If anything I put them next to the house outside walls. We have micro climates around my yard.