In the hierarchy of vines, large-flowered hybrid clematis rank close to the top. Their startling flowers, some measuring 10” inches across, in red, pink, blue, purple, or white, bring rave notices.
Trained on a wall, a doorway trellis, a fence, a lamppost, in the perennial garden, or even in a large tub, they make a wonderful show. Easy to grow, all gardeners except those in the coldest northern areas can feature them.
What’s more, they are not expensive and flower the first year after planting. Here is the planting recipe:
Make a big hole (2 feet wide, 2 feet deep) and fill it with loamy soil in which peat moss and/or other organic matter are thoroughly mixed. Add a quart of ground limestone and three cupfuls of bonemeal.
Stir them in well. Allow the soil to settle for a few days and add a bit more if the level sinks below the surrounding ground.
Planting
Scoop out a planting hole in the prepared soil. Spread the roots so they look comfortable and cover the crown with 1” to 1 ½ inches of soil. Firm the vine in place with your foot and water well. Trim off any broken stems and tick the remainder to the support.
After Care
It will be helpful if the soil around the vine is shaded. If it is not. mulch with a 5” inch layer of peat moss. Clematis like to grow up in sunlight but prefer their roots to be in cool ground. Keep the vine well watered and apply a little fertilizer every three or four weeks.
Mulch for winter protection with a thick layer of leaves or salt hay, especially the first year—and every year in cold areas.
Stem rot could be a problem, but with vigorous plants—the result of proper planting and fertilizing—it will in all likelihood never appear. The cautious among us place an inch layer of sand 8” inches in diameter around the stem; others mulch with coal ashes.
It may psychologically please the gardener more than it benefits the plant, but let’s not argue the point. Fermate sprays are a good check should the disease, which causes stems to suddenly die, appear.
Pruning
The books go into detail on this score. Hybrid clematis doesn’t grow rampantly as the species do, so actually little pruning is necessary. To shape the vines, those varieties which bloom in early spring are trimmed back immediately after flowering.
Those that bloom in midsummer are shaped in early spring. For the most part, all you will have to do on both spring- and summer-flowering varieties is to remove dead stems at the ground line and cut off broken stems just below the break in spring.
Tub Growing
For success use big tubs-8” to 10” inches wide at the top. Be sure there is a drain hole in the bottom. Use a soil mixture for garden planting. After planting place three 6-foot bamboo stakes—not too heavy—along the edge of the tub.
Wire them together at the top. The result: a tepee on which to train your vine. Keep the vines watered and lightly but frequently fertilized—any garden fertilizer will do. Set the tubs on the terrace or plunge them in the perennial garden for spires of color.
Bring the tubbed vines into the greenhouse over winter or place them beside a picture window for indoor color.
Varieties
Follow the catalogs and believe their glowing descriptions. JACKMANII is the old easy-to-grow favorite with purple flowers. Blooms in mid-summer. RAMONA has lovely blue flowers in mid-summer. Also easy to grow. COMTESSE DE BOUCHALTD has lilac flowers with light midribs. Easy mid-summer variety. MADAME EDOUARD ANDRE has fairly deep red flowers. Dependable for mid-summer flowers.
There are many other wonderful hybrid varieties from which to choose. Once you discover that there is nothing difficult about them, you will increase your collection of large-flowered clematis. They can be a feature of your property.
44659 by John R. Rebhan