Hello Bellarosa, Wow your pictures are so lovely! I love your combinations and I loved the photo of Billy Baffin with the nepeta and liatris and daisies down below to hide Billy's knees. Absolutely gorgeous! You should be proud that you have such a lovely home and garden, with a hubby that will actually dig you holes! Wow. Your pictures gave me a breath of summer, since we still have a ways to go before we will be smelling any roses in New England (that we've grown ourselves, anyway!) Tmac96 - I don't grow any of the roses that you ordered, but I do grow the clematis that Bellarosa mentioned and those vines are very easy after the third year. I have a rose garden in the front of my house (sorry no photos like B.R.) in an oval with an obelisk in the center. The obelisk is where the clematis climbs. I have three separate types/colors growing together. Madame Julia Correvon, Etoile Violet and Comptess DiBouchard. Since I'm a "lazy gardener" I cut all the vines down to 12" from the ground when I see the forsythia bloom. Every year this will be a different time, based on the weather. If I had the vines growing on the roses or along with the roses on a trellis, I would cut the vines at the 12" height and simply unravel them from the rose bush, cutting away any pieces or parts that might harm a swelling rose bud. Do a little reading on the types of clematis, A,B, or C or 1,2, or 3. Try to plant the types that get cut to the ground in early spring -- they are easy and very rewarding. (I require - high R.O.I. Return on Investment!!!) It's not so much the cost of the plants, or even the hard hole-digging labor, -- it's the anticipation I can't stand. I love the plants that come back every year bigger and better than ever with hardly any work on my part. Oh! And O yeah, plenty of reading and posting on GardenWEB.

I see what you mean about brown leaves until the plant reaches the fence, so I think you might be right about the heat. I think I might try a mounding clem between two of those and see what happens. I think no one can really tell you what will happen and this may be a time for some experimentation on your part. Are you sure the clems you have planted are only 8" apart? It looks like more to me, but maybe the photo is misleading. I've never overwintered clems in a pot in our zone unless they were buried up to the pot tops in soil, but when I've done that, I've had very good luck. Again, you may have to try and see what happens, but I wouldn't do it unless you can sink them somewhere for the winter.

I had several Clematis when I lived in Michigan. What I couldn't figure out was why some would flourish and some would start to grow and then die off. I believed it had to do with how much light they were getting. You may want to keep that in mind. I do know that the base of the plant doesn't like direct heat from what I read. I always covered them with wood chips. They are beautiful and I really enjoyed having them. I am planning to plant one at my new house here in NC this year too. You may want to view different opinions on prunning when they die off too. I used to cut all the dead vine off but I would wait until it started blooming in the spring because Clematis stars re-growing on itself at random places. I had friends tell me they would chop it off at the base and let it start from the ground up. Mine were always full of blooms and really thick and hardy.

David, that is a lovely rose and clematis, but it would be necessary to know which rose and clematis they are for anyone to offer an opinion. There are now a number of small "patio" clematis available. If it is one of these, then it would probably work. It would just need guiding towards the trellis where, if you want to train it, it will just need tying in as it grows. But why not open a new thread, with some more information? Daisy