Dig a hole in the garden and drop the pot in and use your hands to firm the soil around the pot..keeping the level of soil in the pot equal to the soil in the garden and let it go..just remember to keep sticking that finger in to make sure it's staying moist...not soggy but moist and it'll be ready to plant into your garden in no time...I would pinch out the top ..leaving some green leaves so it can focus on the roots and not vining...that will rush those roots up....Jeanne

Ditto the advice re: florida 'Sieboldii' - most sources recommend a frost-free environment for success with this selection, although there are those (very few) who have had success with this vine in colder climates. Why it is such an issue to grow well here in zone 8, where virtually any other clematis under the sun grows with wild abandon, I have no idea. Regardless, I would NOT recommend this for a newbie. 'Guernsey Cream' is also a very early blooming selection (over and done with here) although if lightly trimmed after initial bloom cycle you will get a light flush of rebloom in late summer/early fall, so plan accordingly if combining with other, later flowering clems.

My Florida Sieboldii is really doing well since I put it in the ground! It's putting out a couple of nice long stems! I'm still not sure where to plant it and my other one once the temps cool a bit. It would be perfect if I could grow them in containers. So I think I'll take Miguel's advice and get a couple of huge containers. That way I can put them at the top of my deck and let them grow both ways on my privacy fence with the lattice on top. I think I'm hooked! I want to order several more! Jeez, I already have several different plants that need to be planted, including my Rose of Sharon, Red Plumeria, Angel Trumpet, plus several I need to re-pot, like my Desert Rose, a new beautiful peach rose, a Hydrangea. And that's just all I can think of off the top of my mind. But it's just too darn hot to do anything right now. Recently, we got a thunderstorm with a downpour, and I took that opportunity to run out and plant my Florida Seiboldii into my garden! It was so much cooler and more comfortable. Thanks all! Dee

Thank you, diggingthedirt, the information on the link was helpful as you outlined in your response. I didn't want to pay a $20.00 membership fee for the site but the link you provided had a lot of useful information. wendyb, you always have good advice so I'm thinking of overwintering but am still leaning toward trying to plant it. You can say "I told you so" in 2010! I actually found one web site that said it was good to zone 4 but that was the exception - most said zone 6. After extremely limited success with starting from seeds this year (I will try winter sowing this December), I decided to buy several different plants to experiment. Mahoney's in Winchester had a lot of perennials marked down 50% so starting in September I was going in there, writing down the names of plants I thought might work, going home and looking them up on the web and then going back the next day to buy the ones I wanted based on my previous night's research. Unfortunately or fortunately, they kept adding plants to the sale and I kept writing down more plants....etc....going back the next day (several times). My rationalization was it was better to kill plants at 50% off than kill plants at full price! The Floriday Sieboldii was an impulse purchase based on the picture with the plant (my fault) and was part of the 33% off sale. In the spirit of the movie "Field of Dreams", I used to think "if you plant it, it will grow" - how naive. Thank you both for your help, as always, it is appreciated.