Clematis: Planting , 1 by ClematisGuru

ClematisGuru wrote:
if you can't find it let me know. and when i get back in the garden sunday i will take a snap of a grouping of the bases of clems and post. here is the collar pic from 08 with a baby clem in it. it is "consort" and that is now to the top of the trellis.
about 09% of my clems are in collars.
when i discovered the idea a couple of years ago, mainly due to erosion of all the expensive top dressing, i went back and retrofitted most of the clems with one.
if the clem is one that does not get hard pruned i cut the collar into a strip and stapled it into the circle around the base, and worked it down into the soil.
recently i saw some pictures and discussion of someone in europe that was using the collars. they also keep small animals away from the shoots, can discourage insects, mark the hole in the case of MIA clem, hold the soil in as i mentioned, and make it easy to water as you can break the flow of water on the side of the collar and fill the collar and you are deep and direct watering the clem with far less difficultly.