Jenn, I figured that you probably lived in a warmer zone by your zonal info. The one advantage to living in a colder zone where it gets cold by December is that you can trim your clematis back much sooner than in the warmer zones. My herbaceous clematis were cut back right after Thanksgiving and all the rest the first part of January. As a result, I don't have to look at brown vines all winter long. In my area, there is more risk in cutting them back in the early spring since we can have warm spells in the very early spring that might trick the clematis to resprouting too soon. For the past three years, cutting mine back in late December/early January allow me to remove the vines without risk of encouraging early regrowth.

Well I need to drag out my tube top and daisy dukes 'cuz I was going to use one clematis to climb the apple tree!! I would have made a very good southerner, I love their food and attitude! You can improve the flavor of anything by frying it and who doesn't like a glass of ice cold sweet tea? The only thing I don't like about the south is y'all have some big bugs down there!! -B (who is looking for TWO clematis glaucophylla's now!)

It really depends. It depends on the variety, culture determinate or indeterminate, even zone, etc. I packed in VF Romas a foot apart and was very productive. If you have disease problems growing a sensitive heirloom you may not have this option. You can grow the indeterminate about a foot apart as well if you prune and single vine. The reason you would do this is for variety in limited space.Make sure the soil is up to it. If you don't want to fuss with pruning then you need to think about up to 36 inches apart for indeterminate. Toms are pretty flexible. I had a double 6 foot vine black cherry in a 3 gallon last year. It was one of the healthiest plants I had with not a spot of yellow all year and a nice supply of a dozen tomatoes a week. I dragged it in a green house in October it continued to fruit in November and ate the last of them during Christmas in zone 5a. I don't just do it for yucks, I have a limited space.

krnuttle, the tree in the north-west corner of the satellite photo is a Cottonwood tree in my neighbors yard. It was part of a thicket of them, I removed all the thicket on my side because there used to be a power line running down the property line so the power company would come in year after year and cut a V in the trees. By the time I cut them down the trees were losing large branches regularly and the trees were growing into my western neighbor's house and my house. This is the last photo I have of that the trees before they got chopped down(notice the large branch that broke off): Here is a photo of the stump, notice they were partially hollow because when the power company cut some of the branches they did it with no angle so water slowly dissolved the trees from the inside out(the hydrant is a decorative thing, already removed it): The remaining part of the thicket in my neighbors yard is showing similar signs, last year a branch about 8 inches thick broke off. The tree is doomed and I am planning on working with the neighbor to use the walnut trees to replace these Cottonwood trees. If I can't get buy-in from my neighbor the walnuts will have to be rethought. The tree in the north of the satellite photo is another thicket but it is Box Elder trees. Half are in my yard, the other half in the neighbors yard. This is another set of trees that I want gone, again the power company destroyed them and they are slowly dying. Last year a branch 6" thick almost fell on my house. The trees to the east in the satellite photo are Chinese Elm trees that will be cut down when my neighbor and I redo the fence(probably the next neighbor since these neighbors are selling). They were not planted, they were volunteers and are 25' tall and only a couple years old. They are growing so fast it is amazing. I may decide to reduce the number of trees but I think 3 is a bit extreme. I am in Utah and it is pretty dry here, not sure how much of a problem mold/mildew will be here.