Jenn, I figured that you probably lived in a warmer zone by your zonal info. The one advantage to living in a colder zone where it gets cold by December is that you can trim your clematis back much sooner than in the warmer zones. My herbaceous clematis were cut back right after Thanksgiving and all the rest the first part of January. As a result, I don't have to look at brown vines all winter long. In my area, there is more risk in cutting them back in the early spring since we can have warm spells in the very early spring that might trick the clematis to resprouting too soon. For the past three years, cutting mine back in late December/early January allow me to remove the vines without risk of encouraging early regrowth.

Check out Comtessa de Bouchaud. Its pink and blooms a fairly long time. I have 16 Clematis' and this is one of my favorite. It was one of the first clematis I bought years ago and last year I bought 3 more of this one. Its also a prolific bloomer, at least for me it is.

It's a pretty tough vine. My DH bought me one and I didn't want it, well not that I didn't want it but I had nowhere to put a vine, so I left it sitting in its pot for 4 months against the house wall, unwatered. It still looked fine in the fall so I popped it out of the pot and planted it there with a trellis. The area is a mess of invasive lily of the valley, tiger lilies and irises. The next spring it started growing and thriving, and I had never watered it or improved the soil or anything. I'm hoping it keeps it up this third summer and I'll get a bigger trellis, it would be nice on the front of the house. No pest problems here, not that I really inspect it at all. I don't think it would harm a fence, as mentioned it needs support to climb so it doesn't have any aerial roots that would wreck stuff.

I grew a few strawberry plants last year, but the yield disappointed me, and so did the size of the fruit. It's noteworthy to mention they weren't "first year" plants. The cold weather fruit is smaller and less meaty than the warm weather ones. Even at the commercial orchards, delicious yes, worth growing a few strawberry plants for the harvest... not convinced. I know I should consider them endearing, after all any kid of quality produce we can grow up here is a god send and should be cherished. But I'm just spoiled... I was born in LA and now live in Winnipeg, and after biting into years of summer California strawberries too big to eat in one mouthful and dripping with juices, the northern variety just can't satisfy my expectations.