Newbie Advice...want my first clematis!

14 years ago

Hi!

I am so glad I found this forum. I am getting dizzy researching various vines and thought maybe you would help me choose from your experiences vs. me scouring the internet. Especially since I am being very picky!

I have fallen in love with clematis but cannot tell one from another. I live across from the water just south of Boston and I am looking for a clematis for a telephone pole in my front yard. The location is in full sun and it's on a bit of a slope which is probably fairly sandy.

My house is a southwestern style pinkish-tan stucco house with red roof. I also have somewhat of a desert landscape going on with tawny stones for mulch and it would be really cool to find something to either complement that.

Ideally, I would like something to grow 6-8' (more is fine too) and if it would stay green year-round, that would be a plus. My color preferences typically lean toward terra cotta but I haven't seen anything like that. Oh and lastly, since it is such a visible spot, it would be great if it didn't need to be cut back so much.

I know this is far-fetched but do you know of anything that might fit the bill? I'd love to hear from you and see pics if you have any.

Thanks so much in advance!

Liane

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Comments (6)

kentstar
14 years ago
You might want to make sure that having a clem climb up the telephone pole is ok with the phone company or electric company. Otherwise, sounds like a great idea. I have a telephone pole in my front yard too, but have hesitated on planing a clem under it because of that very reason.
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buyorsell888
14 years ago
I don't think any of the evergreens will survive Zone 5.

All Clems benefit from being cut back hard their first few years.

I find the Atragene Group looks less ratty for me in summer. Don't need to be cut back after being established.

I think the closest in color to what you want is tangutica 'My Angel' but she can be very weedy looking and a wide grower. I just ripped out a tangutica because it was smothering it's neighbors and not growing neatly up the tree I provided. It had grown shoots two feet in all directions under the soil that just popped up too.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Angel
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Xtal. welcome to the wonderful world of clematis obsession. Just a word of caution about clematis in your zone. You would be much better off growing type III clematis than the large flowering hybrid type IIs that Nelly Moser falls into. The type IIIs are much less likely to succumb to clematis wilt and are less likely to brown out in the middle of the summer than the type IIs. In my zone 7a garden in the middle of NC, all of my type II clematis turn disgustingly brown in the middle of the summer. This however doesn't mean that they are dead, but that the leaves desicate in the hot summer sun. My treatment of type II clematis as a result is that they are treated as type IIIs and cut back severely in the winter or early spring to within 6 inches of the ground. They will flower later in the year and then by midsummer turn brown and ugly. At that point, they are cut back once again like in the winter, kept well watered, and given some fertilizer and they bloom again once it cools down in the fall. Another option is to do as gardengal suggests--only trim them back to remove deadwood in the early spring, they will flower sooner than if cut back as severely as I suggested, and then cut them back severely in midsummer after they brown out to get another round of blooms in the fall. Although the type II large flowering hybrids are the ones mostly likely in bloom and present in the garden centers in the spring, think outside the box and try the many different clematis that bloom later in the season and that fall into the pruning III class. I think you will have a much better first experience with clematis! Good luck!!
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Re: growth rates - you hear it applied to all sorts of other plants, but this saying truly applies to clematis: the first year they sleep, the second year they creep and the third year they leap. It takes time for a clematis vine to become fully established and you will most often get your best results both in vigor of growth and production of flowers from year 3 onward. In the Seattle area, there are few locations where one can't grow clematis. Just avoid areas that receive too much shade - light shade is fine for many types. Also areas that may receive too much root competition from other established trees and shrubs. And understanding the reason behind the coda of shading the roots expands the possibilities - it's not so much as the roots requiring shade as it is not allowing the soil around them to dry out. And shady soil generally holds moisture better than open, sunny soil. But if you water appropriately in summer and mulch the root zone well, you can plant clematis in a full on, full sun southern position without fear. A couple of other notes on new clematis: prepare a generous planting hole, well-enriched with organic amendments. Plant the vine 3-4 inches below the level it was in the container, generally up to the first set of leaf buds. And prune all types of clematis hard after the first season in the ground. Both the deep planting and the hard pruning will encourage the development of a healthy root system and the production of additional basal shoots, increasing resistance to wilt problems. As to trellis or support size, research the expected size of the clem of your choice and select a trellis or support accordingly. And even this is not a hard and fast rule but merely a guideline. I've grown larger types of clematis on rather short supports - they just grow to the top, then cascade over, making a waterfall effect that is pretty stunning come flowering time.
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How sturdy should the trellis be? Sturdy enough to be able to pull the old vines off of it each year assuming you are planting type III clematis. I have no clue what plastic deer fencing is or how resilient it is but I would go with the fencing I suggested in your earlier post--wire fencing that is coated with a green vinyl coating. Lattice made of what type of material? The lattice that is locally available in my area is held together with brads or staples and in my estimation will not stand the test of time. As far as whether clematis will cling to them, sure they will when the side shoots get long enough to wrap themselves around the lattice pieces. Our thoughts on how the wire fencing may look are immaterial. What matters is what you think! The vast majority of the time during the growing season the fencing will be covered with the vines which will hide it. No one can tell you with any certainty how large the clematis will get the first year. That will depend on how large the clematis are that you purchase, how well you tend to them, the length of the growing season in your area, and countless of other factors. Clematis are not immediate gratification plants--they take time to get established and get in full growing mode. I personally think that whatever you use should be a permanent addition to your fence. Putting up and removing any such fixture on your fence is going to put a multitude of holes in your fencing and over time it will look bad.
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judith5bmontreal
14 years ago
What Kenstar said....not only do they need access (and in doing their work will most definitely damage your beautiful clematis), but can just decide to replace your pole with a new one (if the old one is on it's last legs), which is what they did to me (twice!). That's a whole other story....To be safe, keep the area of servitude (6 feet here in Montreal) planted with potted plants (smaller clems with trellis attached to the pots), then you can just sweep everything out of the way when they come. I am very lucky - they actually changed the whole line 2 years ago and put the pole in my NEIGHBOUR'S yard - someone who doesn't garden, and couldn't care less about their property.

Judith
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walla2butterfly
14 years ago
Personally I dont know anything. Purchased my first one this year. I fell in love with a double purple that I saw in town, decided it must be the "multi-blue, and bought it. I can't wait. Anyway I was just thinking that it would look awesome with a terra cotta color. Hope it goes well for you
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funnelweb
14 years ago
They put the poles in your front yard over there! Here (in Australia) they put them in the street, on the footpath, near the gutter, and run the wires to the house usually attaching them to a gable or other fascia board. In my street though, all the electricity and telephone lines and cables are under ground - no poles at all - at least a metre (3 feet) down. Would a clem, climb a pole? I've planted mine around the pool fence and installed wire mesh for the tendrills to hook onto.
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kentstar
14 years ago
That's a great point funnelweb. The clem has to have some kind of way to climb the pole. It won't automatically climb a large round pole. It would have to have netting around it, or climb up a tree or bush next to the pole.
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Newbie Advice...want my first clematis!

Comments (6)

kentstar

buyorsell888

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judith5bmontreal

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