An introduction and a few pics

Hi all. My name is Jennie and I live in extreme north central Montana. Nearly 17 years ago (time flies) my hubby and I purchased an old farmhouse in a townsite that only had 8 other houses. It is fast becoming a ghosttown - no school, no gas, no post office, nothing. Once here, I discovered a love of gardening and landscaping. We have a 4000gal garden pond, a greenhouse, a hoophouse, a flock of barnyard critters, and lots of green things growing. I love the cottage garden/shabby chic look, and we have added a lot of arbors and pergolas, covered our patio, etc and I would love to have them all sprawling with clems.
My clematis success has been mixed but I have learned as I have gone on. My oldest clem is a macropetalata called Bluebird. I have 2 that I can't ID (c. 1996), 2 Etoile Rose (2007), a Petit Faucon (2007), Pink Champagne (2008), and 2 jackmanii (c. 2001). This year I lost my Warsaw Nike and Josephine to a hard winter and a June 6th snow.
I am an RN and work varied shifts. My hubby works for a grain company. We hope to adopt in the future, but in the meantime have 3 dogs that we adore. I love DIY projects - for my 40th birthday, Thadd got me a cordless drill!
This is the view out my front door about 300 yards...

Here is the entryway to our yard.....
The arbor is actually an 'el' and has another section to the right that runs perpendicular. It also has a jackmanii. The joke is that when I bought them they were labeled 'Multi Blue'. There are peonies, dwarf iris, ladybells, and a therese bugnet rose in there also. I made a huge error and planted the clems on the inside of the lattice thinking they needed cooler feet. However, this means that 2/3 of the foliage and flowers end up choking on the inside of the arbor. I plan to move them to the front side next spring and am terrified that they will croak!
Also, I just added another section to this arbor that is 12' long and will have pics up of that when the bed is prepped to beg advice I am sure! LOL

Once you pass through to the left of this arbor, this is the path to our covered patio and back door. I love delphiniums, but they are such brutes. These would very much like to take over this corner bed so I am planning on thinning them. This is part of the space that I would love to cover with clems. If you look really carefully, right in the center of the pic below the lemonade sign is my dearly departed Josephine. Bluebird can just be seen to the very far left.


This message was edited Jul 2, 2009 12:09 AM

This message was edited Jul 2, 2009 12:12 AM

Have to include a pond pic. This is my hubby and I with 'Bluebird on the trellis behind us. That plant has had a tough time training me. One year a whole tiki torch fell over into the bed and the lamp oil nearly killed the plant. It has worked its way back, though.

Here is one of the NOID clems that I have..... Any ideas? This plant does not grow terribly tall, maybe 7-8'?

The other NOID. It is very tall and much more full than the other NOID clem. They are planted in the same bed at either end of a pergola. This clem gets clear to the top each year, and the other is much shorter. However, it does get less sun.
I do think that the camera made this bloom look much more intense and blue/purple than the blooms truly are.

Jennie,
Welcome! What a beautiful place you have! And I love the rainbow shot. I love delphiniums. Yours are BEAUTIFUL and very tall. I'm not the one to help much with clematis. I have luck with some and not with others. But I know there are extremely knowledgeable people here to help you (us). LOL Here is one of my clematis.
Sherry


This message was edited Jul 1, 2009 11:23 PM

Here is one of my favorite garden gems. My only problem with them is that they have an insatiable appetite for hosta.

Sherry, howdy neighbor! Your clem is beautiful.
Jen

As you pass through the entry arbor, this is on the left. (you can just see the arbor post on the top left of the pic). We had a turtle that we adopted and this was her pond. She passed away, though and we have not decided if we will adopt another abandoned one. They are a commitment!
My garage is in the background and I would also like to have clems on that wall (to the left of the picnic table).


This message was edited Jul 2, 2009 12:29 AM

An elderly neighbor passed away a few years ago and his entire property was just an immense junk pile with things strewn everywhere. The family told Thadd and I that we could have anythign laying around that we wanted. I snagged a huge, deep, porcelain double sink for my greenhouse. But I also got several old rusty iron bed frames. I would love to mount them on either a section of my garage wall or create an arbor with them. Of course, for more clems.

Jen,
Hi! And what a gem it is. Beautiful. Too bad about the hosta dinners though. ;o( Your pond looks very nice. I love all the beautiful rocks!
Sherry

My number one handyman. He installed gates on our covered patio so that our four-legged kids could be corraled when necessary. My Pink Champagne is planted just to the left of this picture. There is also a very empty space just to the right (that is where our pergola is). The footprint is about 3' wide and 5' deep and it is very protected there. I have room for a clem and some sprawlers in front. Has to be something that compliments orange though as there is an immense honeysuckle next to that space.

Sherry, I love the sound of them. They get up on top of the pergola which is just outside my office and call out. It is glorious. Glad they go to sleep at night!

Here is another garden pest. This is Grace when she was a puppy. Notice that she is sleeping in the flowerbed. This type of behavior is what earned her the nickname of Good Grief Gracie...

Oh Wow!
Grace is beautiful. What a sweet face.

Got to get to bed. Nice to meet you and will talk again. ;o)

Sherry

Hi Jennie and welcome to the forum! You have a wonderful piece of land there and gorgeous gardens! Thanks for sharing your photo's.

I am curious - which type of plant is planted at the foot of your clematis in the first photo?

"I love delphiniums, but they are such brutes" That is so funny to hear. Where I live I don't even consider growing those lovelies...too hot!
Thanks for sharing. You have such a nice pond and pergolas. Jealous about that cordless drill.Thadd is thoughtful! I wish for a shredder /mulcher!

Jennie..what a wonderful story and glorious place where you live..just fabulous...Don't forget to continue watering where you "think" your clematis are dead for they can just be sleeping and rebuilding their roots to emerge later on...most people assume they are dead and stop watering and then they are really dead
Your first Noid looks like Clematis "Niobe"
http://www.clematis.hull.ac.uk/new-clemdetail.cfm?dbkey=27
Your second Noid looks like Clematis "The President"
http://www.clematis.hull.ac.uk/new-clemdetail.cfm?dbkey=534

Dawn, it is a hardy geranium. G. sanguineum 'Max Frei', I think. I love them and have collected several varieties. This is by far my favorite, It has spread and forms a neat mat below the clem. Its only drawback is that it is a late starter. Wonderfully hardy for my northern garden and does not get that tired look that some do.

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This message was edited Jul 2, 2009 7:25 PM

jennie, the first photo with the rainbow is so dramatic and gorgeous. wow. sets the tone that reverberates "montana". love your whole set up. gracie in particular. is she like a husky and aussie type dog? very cute indeed.
peacocks are something i had at one time here, but our aussie (not as cute as yours) killed them all (3 of them) one at a time. we only have a garage cat now and a long hair chihuahua named daisy.

we went thru hundreds of guinea hens, ducks, fancy chickens feeding the foxes, dogs etc before we realized birds were not something we were succeeding with. i love the sounds peacocks make too.

your clems are nice. the niobe is pretty and i hope your josey comes back. bluebird probably loves the severe winter. atragenes are very hardy. most clems do better with a hard winter unless they are in the montana, evergreen and similar more tropical zone groups. folks in warmer zones that are not suited for certain clem groups struggle more than you will with the winter as far as what it takes to get a big, vigorous, gorgeous and floriferous clem up and going.
so glad you are on the forum sharing your garden and we can learn more about your zone and the challenges of wind and extreme cold.
most of us share a love of clems and the addiction of collecting them and loving them!

Thanks CG. I will not plant anything this yr where Josey and W Nike were. Cross my fingers, but my feeling is they are gone.

Yep, Grace is an Australian Shepherd. We have 2. Also, a Peke named Boomer. What a goofy bunch they are. She would love to chase the birds here so we have had to put in a dog fence away from the barnyard. Our male, Dawson is an excellent fence jumper and we are very blessed that this lovely dog does not chase birds!
Our newest addition is a turkey. What a handsome boy, and so social. However, Thadd said he saw a fox just outside our fence this morning. One came through last year and almost wiped out our guineas and chickens. Grrrrr That is where I draw the line. There is wide open country for 30 to 80 miles in 3 directions -- go hunt there, but stay out of my fence. LOL


This message was edited Jul 2, 2009 7:37 PM

Well... hello there Jennie!!
I've 'known' Jennie for sometime now from ponding forums and she is a very kind lady, so glad to hear from you Jennie and just love your pix!

I have wanted peacocks for the longest time, especially since we purchased our new place w/ 20 acres but I'm concerned about having them because I don't know if they would stay within our property and also want to keep my gardens.
I'm back and forth but everytime I see them for sale my mind starts wondering again..

Do you post anywhere on DG's about them because I'd love to hear more about your beauty...

I will forewarn you, the clem experts will only make you want more, LOL. The more they share, the more you want to expand the collection!

Happy Gardening,
Bonnie from IN

Thanks so much Bonnie, ya sweet heart!
I have never posted much about them before except for a thread on GW about their seemingly endless appetite for hosta! LOL Ours do not wander too far. The secret for us is that we got them in the fall and kept them in the barn/flight pen with the chickens and other birds for the winter. In summer, our chickens and guineas stay within the fence. The peacocks had a lot of time to get used to the birds as their family and the barn as home. They do wander a little bit, but not much. I was only able to get them because they were free as my husband did not want us to have them. Now he likes them, but of course, they don't eat 'his' flowers. LOL
As for a clem addiction.... I already have it. Have had it for years, but have not had much outlet. Last year I found a good supplier and now I am toast!
Jennie

i loved having guineas so much as they kept the place grub free, tick free and i am sure other insect free. however,when they began attacking their reflection in the sides of cars that was hard....garden hose training time. peacocks do have a mind of thier own, ours stayed pretty close after we acclimated them and starting letting them out....it was a true delight to have them wandering about and preening with big tails. however, our neighbors were not thrilled (and we are on 2 acres with not many neighbors) when the peacocks took up roosting on their roofs. alas,bella our aussie took care of the joy and the troubles......we had 2 males and a female. i still have huge vases of their feathers as collecting the feathers in the mornings was as fun as looking at the clems....they have been gone for 10 years, but we had fun wit them for sure.
jennie where do you get your clems? you mention a good supplier? we always like to compare notes or learn about a new source?????

Last year I got several small plants from Koi Garden. I saw that he advertises in the Marketplace here. His clems are small, but are in excellent condition. They were just $6. Sometimes, I have had better luck putting in smaller plants than larger ones. It may take a bit longer to get a great plant, but I have time. I guess gardening is not for the totally impatient! LOL Anyway, though small, they were in excellent condition.
I am planning on spending a bit more for larger plants this time. We will see.....

jennie, when you buy the small size liners (such as koi) ,do you put them right in the ground?

we will be interested in seeing how you compare a larger plant to the liners. for me in second year, even in first year there is no comparison re the growth, hardiness and floriferousness. i usually put the liners in the in the ground in the spring when i get them, and pinch them back several times to create a bushier, stronger plant....but by late summer sometimes the plant is only 4 or 5 inches tall and more risky as far as surviving the first winter.....i like leaping over that "little plant" period. this year i put in more liners than i ever have, so will be interesting to see how i feel next spring and summer with the success rate. some are in large containers, so i guess later this summer i have to get them in the ground since my level of overwintering and protecting containers or moving them in to the garage is zero!

so stay on the forum and keep us posted.....love your whole montana thing, it is beautiful,that first shot of the rainbow and sky....and horizon....wow. love it.

When I get the smaller liners from Jerome/Koi Garden, I generally just put them out and keep them well watered (general first season care). Planting any clems in Montana is sort of a crap shoot; they can be hard to get established. However, The liners that Jerome sent had really dense roots (they were 2nd year and just breaking dormancy) and they settled in very nicely.

jennie, curious. how do you know they were second year? this is still an area i am a little confused on, so appreciate any info.....how do you tell the age of a root when you buy it?

just love your shot there on the plains and horizon and golden rainbow.

Actually, CG, it is an odd story. Last year, my hubby and I opened a small micro nursery. How were we to know that gas would be at an all time high and the economy would tank? LOL We have decided to take 2009 off and pay down some debt. We also need to work on our irrigation plan. A third factor is that at my job we are short of nurses so I am working extra shifts to cover our shortage until we hire someone.

Anyway, I got some of my clem stock directly from Donahue's and some from Jerome that were liners he had gotten from Donahue's the year before. What he did not sell in summer, he winterized and then sold the next spring. That made for some very healthy plants. The roots were splitting the sides of the thin liner pot. They broke dormancy with a vengeance. Most that I sold are doing very well. Goofball that I am, I didn't save any for myself!

sounds interesting.
do you have a green house?
what is a micro nursery? tissue culture?

so you are a clem grower from liner to larger?

Micro as in tiny! LOL We are interested in hardy perennials and a few shrubs. Right now, I am just trying to decide which direction we should take it. Online sales, retail locally or farmer's markets, etc? hmmmm... We built our own small greenhouse. It looks a mess right now as we need to finish painting the exterior. Also have a hoophouse. I have mostly just left it be since last fall. I needed to unplug!

Here are some of our empty vertical spaces in the previous pics. All of the glaring white lattice on the arbors around our patio. That includes the arbor behind Thadd and I in the pic above.

This is the space to the right of Thadd in the pic above of him at the gate. This huge honeysuckle was absolutely covered with blooms this past week, but we have had 2 big windy thunderstorms in the past 3 days so many of the flowres have fallen. I would love to have something next to it (left).

This is the arbor in front after the addition I finished this week. Just have to move the mound of excess soil I have there and get a load of gravel delivered. We wanted to have an auxillary spot for guests to park and also a screen to tuck our riding lawn mower behind. The delphinum in the corner of the arbor got pretty beaten up as we were hanging the lattice panels and I was stepping in there to paint. The flowers in the bed are also pretty beaten from the storms.



This message was edited Jul 8, 2009 10:01 AM

Our rustic old garage seems just the canvas to mount some sort of framework for clems to climb on. I have some old rusty iron bed headboards that I would love to use for some sort of climber structure. I will move my clock and thermometer to the other side of the door behind the picnic table.
My 'brute' delphiniums keep moving forward in the bed. As soon as they bloom, I think I will move them. They choke out everything.

This is the garage wall behind the turtle pond. There is a gravel pad to the right with a picnic table. On the left of the picture, I would like to remove the old piece of lattice we stuck up there and add more climbing structure for clems. I am thinking of using some cattle panels, cutting them to fit around the windows and doors of the garage and mounting them to the wall with some space behind for ventilation. I would love to put a tall rose bush in that area as well. The peony there is a very old one and by the time the rose takes off, the peony would be done.
Excuse the clutter. There is a lot of garden construction underway here. :)

This is the south end of our enclosed patio. The delphiniums really took a beating in the weather these past few days. My departed Josephine was just below the lemonade sign. The lattice I let it scramble over remains to mark its spot.

Dawson, Grace's alter-ego, just 'had' to get in a picture this morning. He is such a sweet gentle boy.

Jennie, I can't seem to quit looking at your first photo. You should enter it in some type of photo contest. And I just THOUGHT I had privacy where I live. What a breathtaking view!

LOL Sharkey about privacy. This is definitely the place where you can walk to you car in the drive or the clothesline in your underwear! I was actually out there shoveling dirt into the new bed at the base of the new arbor section in my nightie the other day! What can I say? It was hot, I went to move the hose, and one thing led to another. I finally came to and found myself with shovel in hand and just thought, "You are totally nuts!"
Lothair is a tiny berg with 9 houses. Only 4 of them are inhabited now and we are the only ones on our whole section of the townsite (everyone else is on the 'west side of town' and well out of view). I tell Thadd that he is the Mayor of Lothair. But I am the undisputed Queen. Queen trumps mayor! *grin*

Love your rainbow, Jennie!

Queen of the Garden trumps everything!

glad i am not the only one who has been known to wander out side in pj's. start to work and realize a couple of hours late i am in pj's.....we are not isolated here but have pretty good privacy, but possible not good enough for pj gardening......