I lurk here all the time, but rarely if ever have posted, but I could not miss this opportunity to post my experiences with Silver Star Vinery. It has been a very pleasant experience. I have bought dozens of clematis from them, and the reason being that my first experience was so great! I have ordered from many, many places before and I only buy repeatedly from where my experiences have been good. As the owner of more than 50 clematis and near 300 roses, I only buy from what I consider the best, and as a long-time gardener, who comes from a long line of gardeners and before that planters, I have nothing but good things to say about Silver Star. The owner has been very patient with me to explain the clematis and which ones work in my area, and never hesitates to do all she can to deter me if I am wanting something she feels will not work in my area. I respect her advice and her advice and plants have proven to be wonderful. I am very happy that the plants are shipped in the manner in which I receive them; it cuts down on my costs and ensures there is not going to be any contamination of soil into my area, if that is a problem with the vendor sending into my state from another state. Perhaps lack of experience in gardening on the part of the OP is the reason for this misunderstanding. As I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, I think it is just a lack of experience in receiving bare-root plants.

I have the same situation with Duchess of Albany. I had deeply amended the soil and the thing has grown like crazy, it's now probably about 12' high and still throwing all sorts of new vines, at this rate it will obviously be flowering away till hard frost. Next spring, I will limit the number of stems, though I'm sure that these will just branch out and again produce tons of new vines. If I can't tame the beast, then I'm gonna have to replace it with a less vigorous variety ... maybe, Princess Diana ... well, I hope she's less aggressive. Oretom, my sister had given her Ville de Lyon a real root pruning this spring. The plant has been kept within a large container and become a solid mass of roots. I had advised her it's probably not the best idea to be slicing away at the roots, though she went ahead with doing so. She then moved the plant to a slightly larger contaniner and although it has not grown as large and lush as usual, it certainly does not appear to have suffered too terribly much. Terry

Any pictures? My imps mostly were a bust. Except a few volunteers I was impressed with: I've never had drop seed and come up again in my z5 garden. New Guineas were extraodinary: The rest basically never did anything: this was at their height and they still were yucky with the rain I had this summer. They did well in ONE spot: All were started by seed - by me.

Fun projects! yeah, I remember your cat - it's looking very cute! I haven't tackled mine yet. Keep setting it aside. I know I'm gonna have to use really small pieces on mine, and I'm concerned about the face looking right. Just not comfortable starting it yet. There's plenty more on my list, tho....never run out of TBM's! I'll be anxious to see what you do with the wall - that will be fun!!!