ooooh, one of my faves - viticella purpurea plena elegans (say it out loud a few times) a lovely, unclematis-like climber which should do fabulously for you, Sherry.
Polish spirit - rampageous
Ville de lyon - cheerful
Perle d'Azure - refined.
A piece of cake to prune too - one savage slash back in early spring....and away they romp.

Campanula, thanks for the thumbs-up on my choices. I saw a photo online of a British garden with a high wall covered by Perle d'Zur. Doh! It was Sissinghurst! It cinched it for me.

I also added Maria Cornelia to the order. It will grow on Red Cascade which doesn't bloom much in the summer for me.

Perle d'Zur will grow on Crepuscule.
Ville de Lyon will grow on Francois Juranville's arbor.
Polish Spirit will borrow Full Moon Rising's picket fence and probably some of Bermuda's Anna Olivier's structure.
Purpurea Plena Elegans will cover Nur Mahal's naked body.

I will be relocating Westerplatte to grow on Mme Antoine Mari, and Henryi will go to the garage wall along the front walk. I think those big white flowers will look spectacular on that green wall.

Fun, fun!

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:331148}}

Sherry, I know you're a little north of me (I'm in the NW corner of Hillsborough County in Tampa), but you are able to grow clematis?!? Please tell me your secret because I've always read/heard that they really don't do well in Florida. I'm drooling over Brushwood's website! ;-)

CAUTION! Rampant enabling going on here!

Fred, the viticella & texensis hybrids do really well here. They aren't the big, saucer-sized ones or the doubles for the most part, but they're great.

Here's an article on Viticellas that gives a lot of names that you can look up.
http://www.howellsonclematis.co.uk/Pages/Gnews4.html

Here's a good website that shows the hybrid groups and the cultivars within them.
http://www.clematis.be/viticella.html

Sometimes Brushwood doesn't say if a plant is viticella. The list above will help to find the right ones.

Seil, it's what we do. :))

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Thanks, Sherry.

Of course I couldn't resist and ended up with 3 clematis and a Trachelospermum. The clemtis should look nice with the climbers I'm putting in the church garden. The "jasmine" will make a nice fragrant statement somewhere in there.

The only bummer about Brushwood is that they are only a short distance away in Athens but won't let you pick up plants at the nursery. I had to pay shipping and GA sales tax. Fortunately, I found a coupon code for 10% off that more than covered the sales tax. Still, I'm pleased. Now might not be the best time to spend some extra $ but come March when they arrive, I'm sure I'll be very glad I did.

Jeff, I was hoping they would ship sooner than mid-February since I'm not having winter, but Dan at Brushwood said they are shut down. Winter is there. Too bad you can't pick them up even in the spring.

Which clems did you get?

Re viticellas, they apparently work well in colder gardens also.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Thanks for the info Sherry. I just ordered a Polish Spirit and Ville de Lyon...like you, it'll be hard to wait until mid-February for them to ship, but oh well. I found a coupon code and got another 10% off. Am I allowed to post the code or is that taboo?

I guess if the code was public, you can post it unless someone says otherwise. :))

We'll have to keep each other posted with the progress of these clems.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Sherry, thanks for the heads up on the sales. Funny but some clematis actually like my hot climate and I love them! I ordered 3 and can't wait until mid-Feb to get them.

Of course being a huge Brushwood fan, I had to get in on it too (I'm going through rose ordering withdrawal currently). I only have 3 clematis right now, so I could definitly use a couple more to mingle in with my climing roses. I really don't know the first thing about clematis, but the ones I have (nelly moser, little ducking, and Sangria) do pretty well with just being left alone to climb. Here's my choices:

Niobe
Paul Farges
Pistachio
Little Mermaid
Blue Light

~Tammy

Very cool, everybody! I love enabling.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I would not grow Polish Spirit on a rose. It is too vigorous, or at least it is here. Despite me cutting it back several times, I saw it overwhelm a rose and kill it, whether by shade or by resource competition I don't know. But the two duked it out and it was the clematis that emerged victorious.

Rosefolly

oh, the 10% discount code is "befrug1" forogt that in my other post :)

Rosefolly, really?! How big was the rose? I don't suppose it would be less vigorous here, would it? I guess I need to reconsider Polish Spirit. I'll be looking for another one. Thanks so much for the heads up.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

The clematis I ordered were:
1. Buckland Beauty
2. Florida Sieboldii
3. Wisley

Could have ordered several more but decided to try to have some small measure of self control.

My rose was only a couple of years old and at the time about waist high. You might be okay on a big old rambler.

I dug up some of the root of Polish Spirit and planted it with an ornamental wire climbing structure well away from any rose. That was the last time I saw the structure. The clematis completely swallowed it. It is happy there and wishes the structure were larger. I do too; I get tired of whacking back the clematis. You know about three types of clematis, and how you should prune them at certain times? PC is group 3, blooms on new growth, and should be hard-pruned in spring. I was just reading that unpruned it will grow to 20 feet. I believe it. Pruned you can maintain it at 8-12 feet. Apparently it is the house-eater of the clematis family.

On the other hand, Polish Spirit is very pretty, and eager, hardy, healthy plant. After all, it is a viticella. As long as you keep it away from your roses, an excellent choice. I would be sorry to be without it in my garden.

{{gwi:331150}}

Polish Spirit, leafing out after pruning
I whacked off lots and lots (and lots) extra growth this fall. It needs to be taken down more, which I will do in spring at the proper time. There is straw waiting to be used as mulch on a nearby vegetable bed, but what looks like straw at the bottom of the wire structure is the bare stems of the plant. You can see a bit of a gallica rose on the left, and a bit of the multiflora rambler Violette on the right, giving you an idea of what I consider a save distance for this plant.

Rosefolly

Thanks for the photo, Rosefolly. I switched Polish Spirit with Venosa Violacea which I already have one of. Unfortunately I only have room for clems on roses and all of the purple ones are vigorous. VV looks good with Duchesse d'Auerstadt, so I'm sure it will look fine with Full Moon Rising whose nakedness and BS I want to hide. VV is quite tame so far.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I grow Polish Spirit over a couple of Graham Thomas roses which, admittedly, are also pretty rampant. True, by the end of the season, the rose is absolutely covered in PS stems but, they are easily ripped out to start afresh. In fact, the annual dragging away of PS and purpurea plena elegans (off a similarly huge New Dawn)are moments of great fun. Armfuls and armfuls of greenery to drag about the paths, fill the green waste bin and neatly trim the short remains. The PS also drapes over the greenhouse roof providing a neat shade cover. This is the really good thing about viticellas - the pruning/yanking back to hardly anything, then a enormous growth spurt all spring.
Paul Farges - another lovely clem with those twisted petals which always look so elegant.
Sherry, you might take a look at Huldine for growing against dark backgrounds. This is my favourite white for its very long bloom seasons, the slightly belled shape of its blooms and its habit of stretching for the light so the blooms are often backlit by sun. A lovely, lovely cultivar.
For myself, I intend to splash out on Winter Beauty - a clem. with an unpronounceable (and unspellable) name - C.urophylla something like. Right now, I have a cirrhosa flowering (Ourika) with palest cream and faint red speckles and bronze deeply cut foliage. I love clems.
By the way, I had never heard of 'enabling' till I joined this forum. Ha!

Campanula, I've heard that Huldine gets pretty huge, too. Can't handle huge. One day I may consider a clem to cover Mrs B R Cant's semi-nakedness in her too-shady position, but maybe this year I'll get the trees trimmed and she'll be leafier. I really wish I could have handled Polish Spirit. It sounds wonderful.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...