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Pictures from this morning - hot here but plants doing well so far....

woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada

5 years ago

Yesterday was brutal here and today is supposed to be much the same. We walked the dogs early in the morning - too hot yesterday to go out for an evening walk with them. They're all bored with just brief bathroom breaks in the backyard! The plants are doing well so far - we had a lot of rain last week so that has helped a lot. I took a few pictures when we came back from morning walkies. These are what particularly caught my eye:

The Chinese wisteria is doing a decent summer bloom at the moment:

The Henryi clematis that normally grows into it is not looking good though - not much sign of growth on it. But the Piilu clematis I planted a few year ago on the north side of the wisteria to match one growing with a hydrangea on the south side of it is starting to do well. This is the first time it has bloomed (you can see the sad-looking stems of the Henryi clematis in this picture):

The Queen Elizabeth rose that was badly damaged by this past winter was cut back hard. It's blooming now - but MUCH shorter than usual!

The weigela and Inspiration clematis combination I had posted earlier this season is still showy - I didn't expect it to last this long!

The Huldine clematis on the iron tuteur is a little less full this year but still very vigorous! It's surfing across the daphne again - trying to reach the iron arbour to fraternize with the red clematises there....?

Years ago I had planted some clematises to grow on a Viburnum at the corner of the garage. The clematises never did well - and then the viburnum died. The clematises have revived themselves and are crawling over the things that are planted along the garage wall now:

July is clematis month here!

I hope you are all staying cool and hydrated....! No heat stroke for anyone please!

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Comments (5)

GardenHo_MI_Z5
5 years ago
Everything is doing very well! Love the clematis.
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada thanked GardenHo_MI_Z5
User
5 years ago
Beautiful! Everything looks so full, happy and lush; I love your combinations.
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada thanked User
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mazerolm_3a
5 years ago
Beautiful!
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada thanked mazerolm_3a
gdinieontarioz5
5 years ago
I love your clematises, they look so healthy and beautiful! I just recently bought my first one: Amethyst Beauty. Our last winter was a bad one for roses. Mine are much shorter than usual too. Most got killed almost down to soil level, and certain ones like ‘Heritage’ don’t care for that kind of treatment: short canes, small blooms.

Today the temperature is much better, I find. I hope we have had the worst!
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada thanked gdinieontarioz5
woodyoak zone 5 southern Ont., Canada
Original Author
5 years ago
Thanks, dinie - clematis can get addictive :-) They seem to like the conditions here and most do well. I tend to not follow the standard pruning advice for most, especially the Group 3 ones - I rarely prune them as hard as recommended.... I'm not familiar with the Amethyst Beauty you mentioned so I look it up on COTW - confusingly there are two by that name! A spring-flowering Group 1 and a summer-flowering Group 3. Which did you get? I have a couple of Group 1 - which rarely get the chance to flower! DH seems to have never absorbed the pruning information or remember where the spring ones are. He has a tendency to go on a neat-spree in spring and rip them back, thinking they are dead....! He did that to a bunch this spring that had finally got big again *sigh*

Today seemed more like a normal hot summer day here, with an undertone of cooler-by-the-lake. We actually got an hour or two of garden work done this morning - cut back the big lilac 'tree' on the south side of the house; removed about 60% of the old mockorange beside it; shortened up the beautybush in the backyard (the one where the robins had nested in 2016 & 2017); pruned off a lot of excess growth on one of the redbuds that was starting to block a path - and shade the beautybush. Not the ideal time to prune some of those things but it needed to be done - DH was concerned that some of the shrubs were going to provide access routes for raccoons to get on or into the roof..... Plus they are old enough plantings that they are starting to fit the 'overgrown' category of things!

I sure hope were're back to more normal summer temperatures! Now we just need some rain too....

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