I'm in Saint Clair Shores. (further east than your daughter by about 30 or so minutes) From Farmington Hills your daughter would go 696 East the Gratiot exit. From the exit, turn right and drive approx 1 1/2 miles. The nursery is on the right-hand side just south of 10 mile road. They are open daily except for Sundays. The is another great nursery more out your way, well at least not in this direction. They do stock species clematis, but not cultivars like we normally discuss in this forum. I will include the link to their website at the bottom of this page. If the link does not work, the place is called Arrowhead Alpines and it is located in Fowlerville. For me the drive is worth it as they stock more unusual plants than almost anywhere else in the Midwest, heck they probably have one of the largest stock of plants in the country. ~Chills Here is a link that might be useful: Arrowhead Alpines

Hmmmm......I see a couple of things wrong with your plan. First, I don't think your pots are anywhere near large enough to support a SAC longterm. You may even have difficulty getting them to overwinter, as the entire soil mass (and therefore the roots) could rather easily freeze. Second, should the SAC's overwinter OK and even with the stunted root run allowed for the pots, they will easily overwhelm a 6' obelisk. Granted mine is very well established in the ground and in a milder zone, but its annual growth is nothing short of startling - it covers a 8'x6' wrought iron trellis, grows 15' down one length of fence and another 20' or so across a large shrub and into a tree in the opposite direction. And this is with a hard pruning each spring. Even in the very restricted growing environment those small containers provide, the SAC should achieve 8-10 feet. I'm not sure what to suggest to you, other than to do some additional research. And I doubt you have to worry about additional guidance for these vines - they'll clamber up those obelisks quite readily. Personally I could see 4 SAC's planted at the corners of a large wooden pergola covering your patio and fully covering it each season. But I doubt that was the plan you had in mind :-)

Hello WendyB, I am in a similar situation this year. We have a 2 year old Sweet Autumn Clematis that had amazing blossoms for the first time last year (picture below) In late November last year, when all the leaves and blossoms were killed by the first frost, I had pruned it leaving about 3 feet length. The winter this year was unusually warm specially in December and the plant set out new buds and vines which were killed by a later snow storm. Now, there are no buds, no swelling, no vines, nothing. Please tell me I did not kill this beautiful thing. Did your neighbor's clematis come back to life last year?

Sue, if you want to add that info to your profile so that it shows automatically by your name, here's how: Go to Your Houzz in the upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone. If you add info on your state or the nearest large city you will get even better information since zone only relates to average coldest winter temperatures. Then return to the top of the page and click Done Editing.