Out of all the clematis you would have.....which TOP 3 would you have that you could not live without. I am looking for the clematis that are hardy....grow nicely....trouble free with medium/fast growth and they bare many flowers. What would be yout TOP 3 choices only. Ok maybe ok a 4th but that is only cause you couldn't refrain LOL......Let hear them all!!!
Test Question - yes this will be difficult.
I really like my Betty Corning, delicate, neat, by neat I mean when the flower is done the petals fall off the stem not leaving a withered mess hanging on, and the petals are small. Great by the entrance to our deck. Lots of flowers and long blooming time.
In my garden, Etoile Violette fits all of your requirements. This 3 year old plant has been blooming for a couple of weeks now. It is on a trellis that is part of a structure that was built as a neighbor friendly privacy screen of sorts.
EV - East facing
The same plant, west facing.
Julia I am assuming this is just one plant? Wowzers!
MJC - I think you already have this one. It's a 3 or 4 year old plant.
I wasn't able to spread the vines out this year as they were growing. The entire month of May was used up when my parents each had a cardiac event 2 weeks apart from each other. I also meant to put a wire at the top so MJC had something to hang on to tightly, but that didn't happen either. It recently slid off the top and is folding over on itself. Oh well, there is always next year.
Yes, it's just one plant.
Oh No! Sorry to hear about your parents. How are they doing now? How terrible.
Yes I just got MJC and I do have EV as well - only planted last spring.
Funny that the MJC would flip over onto itself and not just flip over the trellis onto the other side???
This message was edited Jul 4, 2009 8:17 AM
The parent thing has been very stressful. They are doing ok, I suppose. Medical advances can keep people alive a lot longer these days, but sometimes I wonder if the diminished capabilities makes it all worth it.
MJC flipped onto itself because it had nothing to grab onto except itself, so the whole thing just sort of rolled down.
Oh, I only mentioned 2 clematis. I also love Huldine for all the qualities you mentioned. I don't know how long it blooms, as it's only been in the ground for 2 winters, but it's doing as well as EV and MJC did in their 2nd year.
Most viticellas will match all your criteria and should be hardy for your zone. All of the Kivistik collection should do well in your zone too. I have not grown any of these yet, but along with viticellas, I'm going to focus on the Kivistik collection as I'm no longer buying G2s. http://www.prideofplaceplants.com/kivistik-clematis.html
But.... by far my favorite clem in my garden is General Sikorski. It's so sturdy, the earwigs don't like it for some reason, and it has nice big blooms. Last year it bloomed from mid June until the first frost. It isn't a blooming machine like EV, but the blooms are so pretty and the leaves stay nice all year that I'm happy even if there are just a few blooms on it at times. I didn't have a chance to pinch it back this year, and should just suck it up and cut it back to force more shoots, but I can't bring myself to cut it because it always looks so perfect.
Julia:
Great shots of your clems and wow if I was the person next door I would be so thrilled that you put that Clem there for me to enjoy......LOL
Janet
julia, where do you buy pride of place clems? i communicated with them early this year..not easy as it took multiple e mails and calls to get a response, and they do not ship anywhere in the US i do not believe. i had a local nursery/grower contact them as well. we may have gotten mis information, but i spoke to them myself as well as e mailed with them. some of the selections they had that i was interested in i have located and bought elsewhere such as chatsworth and betty ridson , can't remember the others off the top of my head.
would love to know how you are going to buy their clems, would be interested myself...altho after the communications i resigned myself to the fact it was not going to happen.
please advise, very interested.
julia why aren't you going to collect and grow p group 2's?just the slower start up time?
I am a newbie to this forum, and being a nurse I am familiar with using abbreviations for most everything...but please what does MJC and G2's stand for?
ClematisGuru I am anxious to hear your favortite 3 or 4 clematis? All my roots are less than two years old, so I don't know my favorites yet, but Hagley Hybrid has been beautiful in my garden this year. An I just got a Star of India (at Costco, no less) that has beautiful blooms
mary:
MJC is just short for the name of the clem and right off the top of my head right now I can't think of its name.....
G2 is group 2 this is the pruning group of the clematis.
Hope I got this right....
Janet
Clematis 'Madame Julia Correvon' I believe. http://www.clematis.hull.ac.uk/new-clemdetail.cfm?dbkey=574
and to make it more confusing some sites list it as a viticella...so look under "v" to find
Yes sorry MJC is Madame Julia Correvon.....
G1 G2 or G3 just means groups....one two or three....
Julia do you have John Huxtable? Just curious.
Thanks, Janet. My neighbors said that they are going to take the garage down to move it up further so they don't have so much snow removal in winter. That was in April. Moving the garage would block my arbor from the sun and their view. A few days ago, they were scraping chipping paint from the garage as if they were getting ready to repaint it. Hopefully, they changed their mind and will keep the garage where it is.
Dawn, I don't have John Huxtable. Why do you ask?
Julia:
I've got my fingers crossed that the garage stays put.... for the sake of the Clem... Folks just have to get their priorities straight....LOL
Janet
Pride of Plants Place is in Canada and is wholesale only. I posted the site because I think they have the nicest, and (I think) the complete collection nicely listed. There is a wholesale place in Florida that is trying to do the same-- introduce the Kivistik collection to the US. The best we can do is pressure the online retailer like Joy Creek and Garden Crossings to carry those clems. Want to join me in pressuring them?
Folks, my garden club is in the process of securing a wholesale license for selling plants. I also have some contacts with some rather LARGE wholes growers and would be happy to set them on the path to inquiring about the Kivistik collection. Just let me know.
Sincerely,
Janet
I'm with you, Janet -- I hope the garage stays put, too.
She is a gardener and has a beautiful border. It was fun when we first moved into this house. She gave me a few plants to get started and everyt ime she went shopping, she'd call me over to see her haul. Then, she got into quilting wall hangings. She started with a kit and did an amazing job. Then, the next 3 she made up her own designs. The woman had a gift because they looked like she had been doing it for years. Seriously, the work she did was jaw-dropping. I think she gave up gardening and quilts instead.
I should take a photo of the view the neighbors see even though it's still doesn't look the way I envision it to be.
Julia I would love to see your yard as a whole picture....I can only imagine how stunning it is......
Great suggestion Dawn, yes Julia I too would love to see your yard.
Janet
Julia, your EV is awesome!!! I ordered one this yr from SSV and had planned to give it a partner. Debbie told me that she didn't recommend doing that because EV would get VERY big. I really didn't believe it would ever cover my 6 ft. trellis, but now I am a believer. It's truly beautiful.
I haven't had clems long enough to name my top choices, but of the ones I've had experience with so far, Galore has probably performed best. I've read numerous times that Polish Spirit gives fast coverage and lots of blooms as well.
pride of place did not respond to my local nursery's request to sell to them.
the canada to US thing is part of it, and also i think they only sell blulk to growers, not wholesale to retailers.
i can not pick my top 3 clems. too many variables. however i am going to start a evaluation later this summer taking in to account time to establish, vigor, issues such as wilting and die back, floriferousness etc and rate all 300 of my clem types. not sure if it will be later this summer or the fall. this will not reflect my "favorite" but a rating based on all the variables in zone 5 in my 8 or more years of experience with clems as my core garden interest.
as to my favorites margaret hunt (who will also score very well...maybe the highest, i can not say enough about this clem) would be one of them. rouge cardinal and vile de lyon, hagley hybrid , durandii, m le coultre, alba luxurians....many are favorites including little nell, minuet and kermesina (add walenberg which just started blooming today).....
CG I think you love almost all your clems....LOL
Janet who can't pick three as she doesn't have enough to chose from.....
janet you are right, i love most of them. right ow tho if i could only have one clem i would have 30 margaret hunts, all in a row of glory.
I figured you would say MH Guru......I am very interesting in getting one of those too...however I have not seen it for sale here locally....and as you know I only buy locally...who knows....maybe next year?
Dawn, my whole yard is not ready to be photographed and I still don't invite gardeners to see it. I had an experience recently that made me realize I am waiting for it to be as perfect as I hope it to be someday. We refinanced our home in June to get a better interest rate. The woman who came to do the appraisal gushed over the garden and took a bunch of photos of it. The appraisal was done when the spring bloomers were at their peak, making the landscaping look much better than it is in reality. I don't know if she took all the photos for the appraisal or for herself, but it embarrassed me to think that she might show them to other people who could be gardeners.
There are so many plants that need to be moved. When we bought the house, we had to remove a bunch of bad trees and have a drainage problem corrected. Then we focused on getting in the trees and shrubs. Throughout this time, I had been collecting perennials, which were plunked in where they would be out of the way.
So many perennials need to be moved elsewhere, but the last 3 years have been a challenge; many things kept me from working in the garden.
I don't like transplanting in the middle of summer, but I think I'm going to do it anyway. I'll just have to cut everything back first, then deal with it knowing that next year the garden will look better. That, and keep my fingers crossed that we don't end up having a big party again this summer in a garden full of stubby plants.
Julia:
Yes maybe so wait until your garden is just right, but then you have denied us the enjoyment of watching the transformation.
If you want to talk about bad shape, you should see my thread in garden design of my before when we first purchase this fixer up and all the changes.
Please do share some area shots, doesn't have to be the whole landscape just choice shots for us to feast on....LOL
Janet
Sharkey, I planted Blue Angel this year to go with Etoile Violette. My plan was to remove some of the vines from EV and intertwine it with Blue Angel. I won't know for another year or two how successful it will be.
Janet, you make a good point about seeing the transformation. I hadn't thought about it that way before.
Our house was a fixer upper too. I've been meaning to put all the old photos on photobucket or a similar site. It would be fun to post the new photos along side of the old photos.
I think I may even copy the idea here from Juila I think regarding planting EV with Blue Angel....I think it will be such a nice combo. I might find an EV in the fall and add it.
I would also like to find a dark dark blackis purple colour to go with MJC....I think that would be an interesting combo as well.
dawn use a negritana vitacella to combo with julia corevon contrast if you can, i agree would be nice combo. negritana has been amazing herei n second year..like 10 ft or higher amazing and very floriferous. much better clem than etoile violette in terms of easy to establish and second year vigor. i am a big etoile violette fan, but negritana is a very easy to establish and vigorous clem.
how far away are you form me? maybe you can come down next year when clems are at best and you are still breaking away from winter???????? i know it is hard in growing season to break away...just wondering how far away you are by car?????????
It's funny how we can all have different experiences with the same clems. My EV was planted near an evergreen. It did good the first year, but I was concerned that the roots would overpower EV the second year, but I had nothing to worry about. EV shot out the ground, reached about 10 feet tall, had masses of blooms, and kept blooming like crazy until frost. This year it's at least doubled if not tripled it's size from last year. If negritana grows faster than that, it's moving to the top of my list.
well for me, negritana is double the size in first year at least than etoile violette. i get some good growth on the ev's most years. they also have had a few where they were less than spectacular for some unknown reason.
negritana is new to my garden, but if i needed to plant something to fill in fast with this color, altho they are not the same color, i would go for negritana over ev. but check in in a few years on that.
each garden and gardener is different,but negritana has kind of blown my mind. but i love etiole violette, it was one of my first clems. have a feeling negritana is a variety that will be more reliable in the long run. but that's just my gut on it , having grown both .....but ev is a must. wouldn't want to be without either actually.
I don't think I have seen that one around....nor have I seen it much on the web either? Is that one a popular one? Sounds like I should have in my garden!
CotW states that Negritianka is free flowering and easy to grow and has viticella bloodlines. Sounds like it will be a great clematis!
negritana is amazing. totally surpassed any expectations i had. but so many clems are. a new galore in the ground 7 weeks is amazing, i just posted that on the hardwick hall more summer blooms thread..,wow it is amazing. juuli amazing, minuet amazing. entel to die for. plants available are better, my basic planting and care are better, but basically better and bigger plants making a HUGE difference.
negritana will go tall very fast so it is a good clem to fill in an are where the base may seem "crowded" but you can use some verticle interest fast.
I keep hearing great things about Galore, too.