Alex, you do have quite a quandry there on your hands. I would be tempted to try and move it even though it will set the plant back when you do so. It make take it a year or two to get back to its current state. I wouldn't worry about having to dig up the lawn and any residual nitrogen in the soil since the grass will more than likely have used up any previously applied fertilizer. Addition of more topsoil would help dilute any that is left. If you weren't having to add the foot of soil all at once to the existing site you could probably keep the clematis where it is. We are constantly telling people that clematis should be planted deeper in the ground than they are in their original pots, but one foot of soil would be an awful lot to add at once over the crown of the plant. If you could place a bottomless drum around the plant using say a cardboard form that is used to pour concrete or something similar, you could gradually add soil into the form over the course of a year or more as the clematis grows and that could possibly work. It would be definitely more work than just moving it but only you can decide which you are willing to try to keep it in its current location. Let us know what you decide and how it works out.

I would like to see it planted near your porch/patio and you could wrap some chickenwire around one of the columns for it to climb on. That's a Jackmanii and once it gets going, it will then build on itself. It will fill out around the bottom as well as climbing up. I love, love, love that clematis and have 4 of them. Purple is such a great color for the garden, just neutralizes all the colors to make them blend. In order to keep its roots cool, plant it deeper than you want it. I plant them about 6 inches below ground. That little thing will make its way up. I plant mine in a pot to keep them safe from squirrels and voles until they get big enough to fend for themselves. The roots will go through the hole in the bottom of the pot and by the time the pot deteriorates, the clematis will be huge. Mulch it well with pinestraw to keep it cool in summer. I have about 40 and they do extremely well with that recipe for survival. Don't overwater. I know it's hard to in the desert but just make sure you water well twice per week after it is established. More frequently before that. I have clematis everywhere, so it's hard for me to say where to put it. You could actually plant it in a very large decorative pot and put a mini trellis in the pot. Clematis need something no larger than a #2 pencil on which to climb so you can make a trellis of chickenwire or hogwire, whichever, as both will work but you sort of have to encourage them to go up the support when they are in their first 2-3 years. After that, they have figured it out and are like 5-year-old boys climbing everywhere.

Hi Chocolatebunny, I like the backsplash. I think it looks simple and lovely. I have the same simple white sq tile backsplash. And my granite counters were installed right up to them. I kept the backsplash because I could not find something I liked better. I thought about white subway but then my DH said. "Won't that be too similar to what you already have?" And so I kept the sq white. And 1 year later I am so glad I did. I like it. Granite or Quartz or Corian or even laminate can go right next to the old backsplash. And with new counters you won't even notice the backsplash. It will be simple skirt with the beautiful blouse. The simple side dish to the rich meal. I know there might be issues of height and having to cut. But this is what we did. We put plywood on top of the cabinets. It was a support system for the upgraded counters and it brought the level of the granite up to the space we wanted on the BS. I had ugly thick white tile with white grout before so there was a thick backing but still not high enough to meet the BS. There are many things you can do. I wanted to raise my counters as I am fairly tall and like it up 1/2 inch higher. Have you visited Dupont's site? Not to buy Corian or Quartz or even granite but to see the different colors available and how they match up to similar cab colors. I loved this little tool to play with while I searched for what I wanted in my own kitchen. I think an exotic granite might be different than your neighbors. Something with movement and yes leather them or honed the surface and get some fun. And lastly what about white Marble. Marble would look yummy with your cabinets. And white would match those tiles and go with any color. ~boxer A granite with great movement Copper Canyon Golden River Honed Granite with beautiful movement Eco Counters with great colors and this is NOT granite. Quartz white and pretty Copper might be a fun different counter... Marble

Great thread. 100% behind the advice to not prune magnolias, but as is sometimes the case, there's 'the exception that proves the rule'. The exception being, "unless there is a compelling reason to very carefully prune SOME of them". In this case, you could prune til the cows come home and it was still not planted in the right spot. End of discussion. ON THE OTHER HAND, I will go out on a limb now to say: I have seen enough Magnolias in public and private collections to say, yes, sometimes there is a compelling case to prune them. Very carefully lol. If I had not pruned my various Gresham type magnolias, they would DEFINITELY look worse than they do now. And we often see that in public gardens. I am _completely convinced_ It goes back to the theme I've talked about in other threads...how asexually propagated plants do not establish the correct amount of apical dominance, and can end up ugly, multistemmed specimens when they really 'shouldn't' look that way. So I do very careful shaping of my magnolias, like my newly planted 'Atlas', and will continue to do so. It was trying to form a split leader so I removed the less dominant shoot. It wasn't even firm enough to need a secateur, I snapped it with my fingers. Simple as that. Here is a picture, of, almost certainly, the ORIGINAL, GROWN FROM SEED, 'Mark Jury'. Taken from Abby Jury's excellent website and considered fair use. Notice how it has a strong, straight bole you'd expect for a _tree_. Not a shrubby appearance at all. The parent species of these sort of hybrids: campbellii, sargentiana, even denudata, are most definitely trees. The only shrubby exception is the smaller parent of soulangeana, liliflora. And perhaps if I had a pure soulangeana, I'd be a little less keen on keeping it to a single stem. But back to Mark Jury - a campbellii X sargentiana cross. Now we google for images of ALL THE WORLD'S OTHER MARK JURYS, grown from grafting or possibly micropropagation. We see a lot of this sort of thing: EXACTLY what we'd expect to see of an asexually grown plant that had not been subtly persuaded to grow more as its "origin plant" would have! Too low and too crowded branching because the shoot that was grafted is still epigenetically programmed to think it's at the end of a lateral branch. So...screed finished. I will go on very, very carefully pruning my magnolias. So far my 'Phelan Bright' is now >= 30' tall and there's been no calamitous side-effect of wanting it to look like original, seed grown cross would have looked!* Yes, some of the side branches produced epicormic growth when they were trimmed. I gave those a year or two to 'simmah down nuh', cut them, and it stopped producing them. It's now forming a beautiful rounded conical shape with a a very symmetrical branch pattern. No regrets. * - I'm sick of threads on this site neither being easily searchable w/in Houzz, or properly indexed in google, but feel free to find the pic of my 'Phelan Bright' I posted in the spring lol. If anybody would like to pick a quarrel with how it looks ;-)