My goodness...it is floriferous! Love the color too! I haven't seen a Clem I don't like. :D ~Rosemarie

I really enjoyed viewing your vitacellas and other clems. I also grow several of them, but you are particularly adept at combining 2 or 3 different clems together--many charming combinations, but I really like Ville de Lyon and Emila Plater. And Abundance has an interesting shape that I didn't expect. Kate

Thanks for posting the photos, Daisy. Your garden always looks lovely and the photos are a pleasure to see. I assume that all of your clematis are several years old and already established plants? I am sure that you know that clematis get better with age. Do you ever pinch your vines when they start to grow in the spring? There were some old threads on Gardenweb a few years ago that talked about doing this. If you pinch the vine just above a pair of leaves, the vine will then grow on either side, essentially making two vines. You can repeat this every couple of feet to get lots more vines producing more flowers overall, but it is only feasible to do if the vines are accessible. Also talked about on this forum several years ago was the idea of cutting the vines back after the first flush of flowers, so that the vines would regrow to produce more flowers. Obviously this would only work on those varieties (hard pruned group 3) that flower on new wood, and the longer your growing season, the more times you could do this in a year. It also assumes that you could provide more water (and possibly fertilizer) after the plants are cut back. Cutting back like this also keeps some of the taller growing varieties more compact. I am going to throw some ideas out for consideration, but I really have only been growing lots of clematis for a few years. My climate is also hot, but still quite different from yours. Also, all of my yard is partially shaded, so none of my clematis here grow in full all day sun. My first idea is that perhaps clematis will never grow as luxuriantly in Crete as they do in England, and that maybe you just need to acknowledge and accept that. Secondly, maybe you need to chose clematis with colors that show up better in your brighter light conditions in Crete. Just going on what you have written above, I would say that since you think that Perle d'Azur is showy there, you might want to look at other lighter colored clematis - Emilia Plater, Prince Charles, Little Nell, Betty Corning, Blue Angel,Tentel, Pirko, Maria Cornelia, Huldine, I Am Lady Q, Jolly Good, Madame Baron Veillard. You could also look for varieties with larger flowers such as Huldine, Ville de Lyon, Venosa Violacea, Voluceau, Marcelina (often treated as a pruning group 3), Viola, Perrin's Pride. From what I have read, there are some clematis in the large late flowering group (pruning type 3) that do just as well as the viticella hybrids. I have ordered Voluceau this year because I have read that it does well in Texas, and because in his book "Trouble Free Clematis the Viticellas" John Howells says this about it: "This is a neglected beauty that is worthy of more attention. Blooms are large, red and velvety. It keeps coming with series after series of blooms. One of the best of all red clematis." Maybe you need to consider a different placement in the garden than you used in England. Perhaps you could use obelisks as a support instead of just using other plants as a support - this would "separate" the clematis a little bit and allow the flowers to show up more. Perhaps certain colors would show up better if they were planted closer to where you would be viewing them. Going along with this thought, is also the idea of choosing some smaller growing varieties that could be planted closer to the front of a bed or border instead of in the back. Examples would be Inspiration (this one is one of my longest blooming clematis here), Juuli, Star River, Arabella, Petit Faucon, etc. Another thought, is choosing bicolor clematis, especially those with more white - Venosa Violacea, Walenburg, Little Nell (a great performer here), Minuet, Tango, Foxtrot, Odoriba, I Am A Little Beauty, I Am Happy, I Am Lady J, I Am Lady Q. I think the white on these flowers would allow the other color to stand out more. Have you considered any of the texensis hybrids? I know that the flowers are smaller, but they should also do well in a hotter climate. When I lived in Dallas, TX I grew Duchess of Albany in full blazing hot all day sun - it was on a fence by itself. It took probably about 4 years to really get established (I started with a very small plant), but it did finally get large enough to put on a nice show. I remember that it was quite showy in all that sun, although I would have been looking at it from just a couple of feet away from the vines. I added Mienie Belle here in Houston a couple of years ago, and I really like it as well. Mienie Belle's flowers are a lighter color and they open up wider into a starry shape.

Anniegolden: I have seen the Formosa Azaleas in Nurserys around here, but to my knowledge I don't have any. I have a lot of Coral Bells (coral pink with a bloom within a bloom) with small leaves They look solid pink when they bloom. I have some Pink Ruffles with the bigger flowers and leaves. Gerard L Tabor is one of my favorite ones. My white ones are prob. Delaware White and Snow. I planted most of them 30 or more years ago. I lost a few last summer due to drought. Jean, I went out this morning and looked for a tag on that clematis. I bought about 3 at the end of the season a few years ago. Then a dog or varmint ran thru my trelice and pulled everthing including the three clematises out into the yard. When I got them put back I think I only had two that lived. Believe you me, I got some stakes and staked that trelice in the ground. The tag I can barely remember was a French sounding name. I think it was "Ville de Lyon" It is the right color, but mine has more white coming out from center. The tag I found today says Clematis viticella Polish Spirit which the tag describes as Deep Purple (blooms June - Sept.) I think it is closer in color to Ville de Lyon. Checkout Brushwoods Nursery on the Web. A nursery lady told me they are a great source. Sarah Ann