Hi SAC aficionados - Many thanks for all the info above, I hope to learn more from all of you, with experience. I had to erect an arbor to protect my 16y/o Nikko H from full sun (she lost the dappled shade when our 26+y/o Locust tree had to come down). My search for a fast growing climber took me to this forum & fell in love! (Bellarosa's & Pianolady's pics got me) I planted 1 on each leg of the arbor last June - got them from 2 different nurseries) The one from Earl May was a younger SAC grown in Iowa and bloomed beautifully in Aug and has a lot of seed pods. The other was an older plant and was stressed out when I got her on sale - my heart broke when the only surviving vine broke to the base, in planting. True to her nature, she did sprout new limbs and climb happily on the arbor ( about 7ft, but didn't flower). My ??? - do I need to do any kind of overwintering measures? Will the seeds grow in the area, should I snip them to avoid spreading? Did I need to plant 2 to cover a 10 ft tall arbor? Will I end up with a big pruning job in the future? Would appreciate feedback from similar zone, devotees. ditas

Sweet autumn clematis goes by many names. The one I have is celmatis terniflora, but the exact same plant - as far as I know - is also called clematis maximowicziana and clematis paniculata. I'm not sure why, but I know that several plants have gotten new sceintific names lately. Don't know which is the current name for my plant. I have heard people call other species (?) sweet autumn clematis, so you could have a different plant. If yours is evergreen, it's not terniflora (or all its many other names). Isn't there something called virginiana that's evergreen and an incredible spreader? Does anyone know?

Well, I've spent a fair amount of time fighting honesuckle and multiflora rose to keep it out of the woods on properties I've worked at. Didn't realize until I Googled it that the native wild clematis, VB and Sweet Autumn Clematis were different, and that the non native one was invasive. It's the smelly one I want. The wild clematis is not showy enough to waste space on it in my tiny, tiny, tiny urban downtown row house yard. I don't feel there's much danger of my stuff invading a pristine natural area, the best luck a seed from my yard would have is to land on some vacant urban corner. I haven't read anything about the clematis being a big problem around here, but maybe that's because it is not very commonly grown or sold in nurseries. I don't mind cutting back the upper foliage, to keep it trained along the fence. My neighbors have a grape vine trellis that they have to keep after, but the roots don't wander, just the tops. But after that rose experience, I just don't want something with root suckers, because then I have to go into my neighbors yard to pull the stuff up, and it risks disrupting things, in my yard and hers. I don't want to accidentally uproot her tomatoes or something like that. Maybe I should go with a regular clematis. I sure do LOVE, LOVE the smell of the Sweet Autumn Clematis, and the flowers are pretty too. It smells like baby powder. I have such a tiny yard, I can never decide what to plant, because I am torn between wanting stuff to eat, smell and look pretty. I had to tear out my beloved crab apple which has all three qualities, because it was overrun with rust. I didn't treat it at first because the Cooperative Extension folks said it was just "cosmetic." But eventually the whole thing became infected and distorted and covered with the stuff. And I realized that the soil where all the leaves fell would now be infected for years to come. I finally put the poor thing out of its misery. Now there's a huge hole in my garden and I can't decide what to put there. So far I am replacing the tree with a red ninebark, but I don't know about along the fence behind it and on either side.

Hey Deb I grew sweet autumn clematis from seeds and planted 3 or 4 plants next to the fence when we first moved here. I was so excited to have them finally since I'd always loved the look of the masses of frothy white flowers draping over a fence. Only it never did get the way I imagined. The flowers were few and far between and they were not really white. The foliage covered the fence and the trees and the cable guy's van parked on the other side. And then the foliage stuck to the white vinyl fence when winter came and you could see this huge tangle of bare vines with the dead, grey leaves plastered on the fence. Took a lot of work to get rid of it all. Then I read a warning that sweet autumn clematis is invasive but I can't remember what part of Florida that applies to. It might be OK up where you are. And it might perform better where you are. It would be nice to see you have success with this plant! Susie