Clematis: Your first clematis - show and tell, 4 by pirl

pirl wrote:
Carolyn mentioned, on another thread ( http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1309583/ ), how her first clematis led to being hooked on them. So I thought we might like to post about our own first clematis that led us down the beautiful road to clematis loving.

We had owned our home for a year but lived 90 miles west of here for the first year to make it easy for Jack to go to work so May of '92 we were finally here permanently planted on the North Fork of Long Island and with more property than either of us had ever owned and eager to create our gardens.

The first catalog to arrive was from Wayside Gardens and featured a collection of clematises. We decided to try it. A neighbor, who was a doctor here in town with her husband, also a doctor, told us we had wasted our money because - "Clematises don't grow here". She said they bought one and it died. I asked where she bought it and she told us Michigan Bulb Co. Jack and I did not cancel our order with Wayside! She was amazed when we got blooms.

The first photo shows one part of the house in a before photo and how we've changed it over the years. There are now 9 clematises on the trellis. Omoshiro is part of the collage though we didn't get that one until 2007.

The second is of Nelly Moser growing on the stump from the pine (in the first shot) that we had removed right away. Nelly was part of the collection.

Jackmanii always seemed to be featured in Wayside's catalogs collections so as we bought more collections we became saturated with many Jackmanii. Photo #3 shows the very first one in the very first area I cleared for a few plants. You can spot the outlet pipe for the original generator at the front. Jack was sure he'd hit it with his first riding mower so that was the reason for that area being changed.

Another of the originals was Henryi and that certainly made a big hit with us...and the neighbors. It bloomed that December as well!

As more gardens were developed we added more clematises and have never looked back.

Thanks to Annette, I've ordered Maylene to adorn the shed.

Thanks, Carolyn, for a great idea that inspired this thread.