I went the opposite way. When Deb first got some clematis (4), I planted them in pairs a foot apart. I didn't care how close they were. The things didn't take up as much room and were away from roses. After all... they were just weeds Deb wanted to have. It wasn't like they were important :) I didn't care if they competed for sun and root space. Somewhere along the line.... I became fond of the things. Watched Dr Ruppel strangle Ramona and Jackmanii almost did the same to Ernest Markham. I was amazed at the size of the rootballs when I dug up established clematis. The roots on our 12 year old Dr Ruppel are 2 feet in diameter. Don't know how deep they go on him. I had to move the 12 year old Jackmanii and it was 18 inches in diameter and 2 feet deep. I began to respect them as good plants in their own right. I was also glad I had planted clematis at least 2 feet from the roses. Never expected weed roots to get so large. Hope you realize I am a very strange gardener. I get claustrophobic seeing clematis wrapped around rose canes. I try to keep the clematis on the fence or trellis. I want the plants to have room for their roots to grow. It makes for a strange garden too :) It is a jungle but I like to consider it an organized jungle, lol. Not saying my way is right or that planting clematis a foot apart is wrong. Just trying to explain why I no longer plant them so close together. Have to admit, life was much simpler when I just planted the rascals together out of the way. How can a rose guy justify spending time taking care of weeds.... or, heaven forbid, using precious garden space for a nonrose??? *sigh* OK, I'll shutup :) On preview I realized we do have some new clematis I leave close to other plants. We find volunteer seedlings and leave them where they come up for a few years. A couple of them are huge now and I'm gonna have to transplant them soon. How did a rose guy get so tangled up in weeds??

I doubt you killed your clematis, but you may have cracked the fragile stems at the base. Keep treating the roots like they are alive and you will probably get new shoots coming up. Best practice is to prune the clematis back hard before you plant leaving only about 6 inches of growth or taller so you have a few sets of leaves. There isn't a leader vine. Sweet Autumn grows fast, so keep watching it so you can try to guide the stems. I add bone meal the way Chalk Hill recommends, but it isn't required. I don't take out the supports that came in the nursery pot unless they fall off. I try to cause as little disruption to the roots as possible. I do take off the twist ties though and use my own. Tightly tying the vine to your support isn't good. I use velcro straps to hold the vines in place. It doesn't take long for the tendrils to grab on, so as soon as it does, the straps can be removed. What I try to do when planting a new clematis is plant it at an angle towards the support. That way the vines will already be growing in the right direction. To help it along, I might add a couple of lengths of thin bamboo on either side of the root mass and use these to help guide the vine. It also serves to protect the vine (somewhat) from dog feet. Where practical, I will use the velcro pieces to hold the bamboo to the support, but most of the time it can just rest on the support because the soil holds it in place.

I saw a blooming 'Pink Flamingo' three weeks ago or so at Home Depot labeled 'Ruby'. I purchased a 'Blue Bird' a couple years ago and it was correctly labeled. It wasn't in bloom when I bought it. I've seen an entire table of blooming 'Piilu' mislabeled at Lowe's but I can't remember what they were marked. I've had trouble with bulbs from Costco, Wal*Mart and Home Depot not being correctly labeled. I did just get lucky and the Wal*Mart packaged Peony I bought on a whim because it was two bucks was correctly labeled. It finally bloomed today. I tend to see mis marked blooming plants at big box stores often so I mostly now only buy them when in bloom. You can get bargains there, especially on some of the expensive stuff like Proven Winners shrubs. I did hand two dwarf Rhododendrons to a clerk at a local independent garden center recently that were mis-marked.

Thanks everyone for your ideas. Jeanne, I will check out that link. I like the idea about keeping track of all the plants you have on a list. I keep track of my roses that way, including where I purchased them and when i planted them. I just ordered a whole bunch more clematis last night from Koi Gardens, an ebay company that I heard (on one of the rose forums) was having a sale. I did pretty well, i think. Their clematis are 50% off. I'll give the link in case anyone is interested. http://koigardenclub.com/Clematis.htm Anyway, thanks again. Shelley