I would agree about separate containers. I just know how my Prince Charles has been in its 21". LOL I've been using some bulb fertilizer on mine and that is slow release plus has a similar formulation as bone meal with some added stuff (which I use on my peony). I fertilize in late winter/early spring after I cut the vines back to the first couple pairs of buds (mine is pruning group 3). BTW, unless the obelisk is really tall (like 5ft - 6ft), they'll blow past it. And even with the taller things, you still have to train the vines to go somewhere or they'll fall over in a tangled mess - even if trained on a rose. I put mine on a tomato cage which was about 3ft tall but where I could wrap the vines around and around the structure of it. This is what it looked like before it started blooming: When it burst into bloom at the end of June (really early for it), it looked like this, where it could flower near the top where it could get sun past all the shrubs across from it:

I've got the following roses and clematis plants and any ideas or thought on clems to add to my collection would be most welcome... I've got an Alchymist climber on a wooden fence out in the middle of my yard, with room for two more climbers, or some shrub roses. I have other roses on the other side of my yard by my house--Eden, Jude the Obscure, Evelyn, Olympiad, Fantin LaTour and some Casblanca lilies planted nearby, adding as I can afford extra bulbs and can find them at the growers. I just got two clems, Rhapsody and Vyvyan Penell--one of which I plan to set out with my Alchymist. Preferences? Beyond that, I have two clems I don't know the exact names of yet--they were mismarked when I bought them, and are not what's on the tag!I will upload photos once they bloom. Those two are planted by the Eden and the FL....whatever they are, lol, they are currently thriving. Any idea on adding roses and clems to my fence or shrubs would be fantastic food for thought, and would be most welcome.

If you go to your member page you can add your zone and something that tells where you are generally such as your state or "Cape Cod" or "Bay Area". That will help you get feedback. I am assuming that the fence is the solid wood fence with the lattice on top, not the cables around the deck. If so, do you have something for the clematis to climb? They climb by wrapping the leaf stems AKA petioles around things, so it needs relatively narrow things to wrap around, such as a narrow-barred trellis 3/8" diameter or less, wire fencing, etc. Is the whole area relatively bright and open or are there overhanging trees? Clematis need enough light to bloom and will take a long time to grow into the sun at the top of the fence if there is too much shade. I don't grow any of these specific clematis, but have some general thoughts as to planting. I don't think I would plant pairs in the same hole just because I think the stronger growing plant will out-compete the weaker. I would get rid of the grass along the fence, loosen the soil along the whole bed and mix in compost since clematis are fairly heavy feeders, and use a buried edging to keep the grass out. It is really difficult to manage grass around clematis stems without accidentally cutting the clematis stems. I'd plant each clem in its own hole as close as a foot or two apart so that each can get started without competition. To keep the soil moisture more even, I'd cover the whole bed with organic mulch such as wood chips except right against the clematis stems. The other potential issue is that you have different planting groups mixed together. The different groups each bloom best when pruned according to group. So for instance a hard prune group clem like Polish Spirit will only bloom near the top on new growth if not hard pruned over the winter. Nelly Moser is a group two which gets a light prune after the spring bloom. If you hard prune it with the type three's you lose the earliest blooms. If they are planted together it is difficult to prune them separately. In my case, since I live in a zone where group two clematis are usually winter killed back to near where I prune my group threes, it doesn't matter much since I only get the new wood bloom on my group twos, so depending on your goals, it may be fine to mix groups. I have linked below the search forum for Clematis on the Web which you can use to look up your planned clematis. When I look up with the name of the plant I only use one word of the name since this search engine doesn't like spaces, and there's no need to fill in any other field. There is also a pruning guide in the FAQ of this forum (look for the link above the list of threads on the clematis forum page.) Here is a link that might be useful: Clematis on the Web This post was edited by nhbabs on Fri, May 2, 14 at 19:10

If you look at both pictures again you will note that it isn't so much that the colors are so garish in the first-the combinations of the intensity is wrong. In the first it is the light pink (Nelly Moser?) that throws the whole combination off. When using intense colors, everything has to be intense. The idea works well in the second picture because they used similar intensity of color, not just the colors they used. I always found Clematis to be quite fussy about PH of the soil, more so then any other plants. They also like their roots cool so planting something at the base of them or covering with a rock or pot worked well for me in my (then) hot, humid summers.