Hi! You poor thing, want to grow roses, eh? ;-)) You only want to cut off the blooms once it doesn't look good (what "doesn't look good" is up to you). Clip or snap off just below the bloom. Your new plants need all of the leaves they can get now, so no "hard pruning" for the rest of the season. No cutting off "old wood", no pruning down to the soil level (you'll never do this at all, unless the canes are totally black and dead). After blooming, you can fertilize. Fish emulsion would be good. You can try Espoma Rose-tone, but some of it won't break down in containers (I still use it anyway). Miracle Gro is OK too, but some people like to stay away from synthetic fertilizers (roses don't know the difference). Good luck!

I would still be tempted to cut the plant back severely. If the plant is that newly planted and already that tall and leafing out at the top, it should be able to put out new foliage at the crown if not put out shoots from the vines you leave behind. The plant definitely has nodes all along the stem. Whether you see buds at those nodes is another question. Just realize that there might be dormant buds that will be called into play if you prune it. If you don't risk the pruning, you run the risk of having a single stemmed clematis that will have bare legs up to the point of where it is currently leafing out.

Over here, they actually chop down all conifers in mixed forests (not in all forests!!). So even if it is not a monoculture, which is the pinnacle of worthlessness they think. How about this one: heath is only possible over here because of human interference. Prior to 1100 AD there was no heath nor inland sand dunes. These are deserts caused by the same overgrazing iwe see in the Sahel region. Now what is modern? Chop down forests people started to grow on them, in fact erase the fertile layer that has developed since and change it back into a desert....It happens all around over here. Right, and we are going to tell Africans not to chop down their woods for their (economic) reasons? Anyway: how natural is that? How native can you consider this interference? These double standards are a second point I dislike. Humans are not natural unless they do something some ecologists like (not all ecologists are like that of course). Why do we have so many birds over here in Holland? Because all woods were cut down, now we have some sort of wet prairie where birds flourish. But only for as long as humans chop down new trees or big, nonnative (!!) browsers do so. These browsers were introduced and can do so because there (well for the time being) are no wolves to prevent it. Studies in Yellowstone have shown that reintroducing wolves leads to fast reforestation as browsers are hunted again. The reintroduction of wolves in the Netherlands has been halted because of....wolves would kill big browsers, which was considered bad for birds....Aha: that is very natural indeed....Well, the wolve is at our doorstep now,lynx is already back. Foxes, which have no real negative impact on birds btw are also shot because they could harm birds...Etcetcetc. I feel there is a lot of disprespect to life of trees and animals and native ones are overrated. What started the deforestation in Europe first? Right: just chopping down woods because that was what they are here for......Why not teach children that all life has value, not only among humans there is equality but all living things have to be respected and can't be killed just like that, surely not because some sort of doctrine. Look at the Grey Squirrel in England, they even bang the little ones heads against trees and kill the parents by trampling on them. Or shoot parenting birds and leave the young on the nest to starve. Of course this conflicts with animal right groups and in my opinion righfully so. Or giving grey squirrels warfarine, which cause them to have internal bleedings (in the brains) and again a horrible death. I am sorry, but again some sort of doctrine actually sells killing as something necessary, to save red squirrels. Why are red squirrels better or worse then grey ones? Are whites better than blacks? Why? Should blacks stay in Africa or be reintroduced into their native habitats if this could be possible? I think not, but may some one can give some good reason why it is different.. Amongst ourselves, humans, we have had our fair share of war based on doctrines. Just remember a part where some race was considered awfull and killed by the millions because of some doctrine. Sorry to get carried away a bit, but this is truely what I think. Morally I see no difference in disproprotionate value adding to animals based on nativeness or nonnativeness. It is artificial, it makes the animals (and trees) first class and second class "citizens" and then, like many other doctrines it opens up the way to eradicate them. I want to stop this, just looking for the right tone I think ;-)) Conferjoy: thanks for the link. Could you tell me what they do?

You can save the compost until spring without any loss of viability. Just keep it warm and damp in a ventilated container, an old worm bin would be perfect. In addition to storing the compost you will be able to save the baby worms as they hatch out.