Pictures from today.
Arlene
H F Young second blooming this year
Another
This is gorgeous! I was just discussing HF Young in another thread. It is one of my favorites! Beautiful photo.
Yes,that is a beauty! Have you had it a long time?
Wow, that is sensational Arlene! Mine has not yet graced me with a repeat bloom. Maybe next year. Really, really beautiful !!
catt....
I love the pictures and I also like that arbor very much...LOL
Thanks for sharing them with us.
Janet
Very pretty, Arlene! Do you find the color to be consistent between early and later blooms? What is the lighting where you have this pretty baby planted?
as the photo shows, later blooms on this clem can be slightly darker and slightly smaller, as true with many clems in second flush.
i am so glad i stumbled on hf young 4 years ago and was able to get several gallon plants.
i love it.
That is a lovely one and I would love to grow it in the new clem area I am creating for next year!
Could I get away with growing this in my zone, very hot, humid and rather wet summers? My soil is a well drained sandy loam pH 6. Area is part shade.
Jon
Jon, Your description of your weather is actually my growing conditions here. Hot, humid and rainy summers.
Bananna, This plant is almost two. Planted Fall of 2007.
Janet. Really? I'm smiling because I've always questioned my judgement on purchasing that arbor.
Evey, That is the west side of the house. Second flush blooms are darker than earlier ones for this plant.
Arlene
Thanks Arlene, That's on my list of must have then! LOL.
Jon
Jon glad to see you over here in this forum.
For those that don't know him he has been giving a lot of us an education on the translating Japaneses names of morning glories to English... Such a wonderful helper.
Janet
Janet, thank you for your kind introduction. I still have a very long way to go with translations! LOL.
I love many vines and climbing plants as they add hight and color to my garden.
Jon
Cattjovi, I'm sure we have very similar weather. I'm glad to see someone from GA on the forum. HF Young must love the South, as he has done extremely well for me. I have 2 or 3 liners that want to act like adults already. They are all vigorous with multiple stems. I can't wait to see what next year brings. Will you give your G2's a partial prune after these blooms, or just leave them as is?
Sharkey... I'm glad you mentioned an additional pruning. I was wondering if we could push a third bloom out of our babies as well. I'm going to give it a try on a few of mine and see what happens. Have you tried that on any of yours yet?
I pruned Galore about half way after second flush of blooms, but only because I thought I was supposed to. I don't necessarily care if it gives me more blooms. It performed well twice and everything deserves a break, don't you think?
I was especially curious about the G2's with our late blooms. We will continue to have hot weather at least till end of Sept and possibly mid October. I know the G2's bloom on old wood, so I'm probably going to cut them back by half or so after this second flush of blooms. That's what I did with my liners still in one gal pots.
I believe Guru mentioned giving them a weaker fertilizer about 6 wks before first expected frost. Hope I'm right about that. Forgive me if I'm incorrect, Guru.
Sharkey, I don't know about your area, but there's literally no way to predict first expected frost here. It comes at a different time every year. The plants do need a rest, but my repeating Louisianas generally give me three blooms, and they come back robust every year. I push the envelope with blooms on the roses too, giving a severe pruning in October so that I have beautiful blooms at Thanksgiving. Then, I give them the winter off and stop deadheading. For the roses, I've found that the first flush of spring is much more dramatic if I force them to take a break in winter.
when you test pushing the clem via pruning and fertilization for a third flush, perhaps evaluate the 3 to 5 yr performance of the clem over some you do not do that with.
perhaps good results initally but not long term, but not sure that matters to some gardeners.
last fertilization 6 weeks before first hard frost. but i some of your zones you do;t even get really hard frosts right? or you get light frost and then things warm up vs go dormant.
Has anyone testing the performance of Clems that are in hot and humid climates?
I think that would be a very interesting study/research to see how they perform.
I'm going to start a reseach thread for us all.
I'll come back and post a link once I get it started.
Janet
not many pictures from hot climates with detail of age of plant, but seems like more and more data is coming together so eventually there may be more info on how successive years in the climate work.
however, lets think about this, maybe we expect too much from a clem in terms of longevitiy, bloom period length, number of bloom periods etc.
if a gardener can force a couple of fab years, replacing the plant may be a small nuisance compared to the joy and beauty it has given us.
how old are most of the clems in YOUR garden (addressed to anyone interested in clems or reading the forum)
what is your succession planning for when a plant dies? layering when the plant is a couple of years old can work well. starting buying other plants of the same variety is another plan. clems i love i usually have in more than one location.
ssv website under proteus there is a plant many years old. it is a fantastic specimen.
BG, I will admit that our weather is unpredictable, so there is no way I can fertilize exactly 6 wks prior to frost. Last yr we had a colder winter than usual and I think first frost was around Halloween, which is early. But we always get a frost in November, so I think I can be pretty close in my estimating. If the few clems I planted last yr had not done so well this year, I would never had bought so many recently. It's a gamble, but one I'm willing to take. I think we're both gambling by buying so many.
Janet, I think your research idea is a great one. Actually, I feel that I'm performing one big experiment already. I won't really know for a year or two how the clems will adapt to our winters regarding dormancy. But, I'm an optimist.
sharkey, based on info i have heard from experienced growers, you may have better year after year results if you do not force a third flush of blooms by pruning and fertilzing. only second hand info that was told to me, but food for thought. we all have our limits, no?
since you have multiple plants of many cultivars, you can do some testing by handling some in a 2 bloom period style and some as a 3 bloom period style???
even if you took 3 or 4 types that you have mulitples on, within a few years you would have a good POV on this, no?
JeanneTX has posted many threads in the past with her lovely photos and she has detailed the age of the plants in many of those threads. She's in 8b and her weather is very similar to Sharkey's and to mine. Anyone interested in which clems do well in a hot and humid climate over the long haul would do well to contact Jeanne or go back and read some of her past threads. Moreso than taking advice from someone in a northern climate, I think Jeanne's experiences over the years speak to what would be the best practices for those of us just getting into clems in the warmer areas. There are just too many differences between the stressors seen in the different regions for anyone in a much different zone to speak with total authority. Even those who are in California would have more useful experience in predicting what will or will not be the behavior of a clem for those in the warmer regions.
I noticed that Jeanne hasn't been posting for a while, but now would be a great time for her to "chime in" and give her opinion. When I get time, I will look back at earlier threads and see if I can find some of her photos.
I think I saw on the weather channel that TX has had a horribly hot summer, even worse than ours here. So, I am especially interested in learning how Jeanne's clems are doing in 100 plus weather.
I don't think Guru is claiming to be speaking with total authority about anything, but is passing along what experienced growers have told her. I hope that after I have grown clems for 8 years, I will be in a position to feel comfortable giving advice to beginners like myself. Let's face it--we've just got to do what our gut feeling tells us to do and learn from our mistakes. I've already made many in the one year I've had clems.
Sharkey, Jeanne is on DG pretty much daily, but she hasn't posted in clems much recently. I'm sure she would be happy to share her knowledge with you if you shoot her a dmail. She's always been so incredibly helpful and informative. I do miss her posts!
Jeanne is outside Houston in an area that typically tracks in the same band as Baton Rouge. My best friend lives there as well, and it seems like we always get the exact same weather, just a day apart. The Fed gov't has done quite a few research studies about the weather tendencies in conjunction with tracking chemical dispersion from leaks at plants all along the Gulf. I know it does travel all the way to some part of the Florida panhandle as well, but I'm not sure if you are in that zone or not. Are you close to Pensacola?
We're about two and half hrs from Pensacola.
Ah, then you are probably not in the area that they are studying. I'll have to try to find the last study they published and see where they stop the readings. I think it's somewhere inland, just north of Fort Walton.
Sharkey, thanks for the comment: "I don't think Guru is claiming to be speaking with total authority about anything, but is passing along what experienced growers have told her." Well said. Thanks CG for all your help.
Nancy
Punky(Nancy)
I second your emotion! CG has helped me so much. I enjoy hearing what she is doing. She is always so good about putting a disclaimer on every bit of great advice she gives us. My husband, who tolerates my clems and just seems to listen, even knows who CG is. He knows how much I respect her advice...even though I think he secretly is saying..."she is feeding my wife's addiction." All I know is that I am having a great time, my new baby clems are all doing well and I can hardly wait to read the new posts on this forum. Thank you CG, thank you all my new friends. Mary
Mary, you're correct! Many people here have been bitten by the bug reading Gu's as well as Jeanne's posts, including me! Gu, have you ever considered writing a book to have a more widespread audience for your experiences? I was reading the touching story of how Deb got started with her clem addiction 9 years ago on the SSV website (if you haven't read the story, it's definitely worth a read) and remembered that you once mentioned your experience with clems is about 8 years... only a year less than Deb's. The popularity of the plant really is amazingly rather short-lived here in the U.S. I think it would be inspiring for others to read how you've built your tremendous collection in such a relatively short time, as well as learning more about the people who helped you learn along the way.
if Gu means me, no.... i am not considering any commercial enterprises such as a book. i am too busy actually growing clems and enjoying my colllection and frankly, looking to expand my knowledge on the topic as well as have a way to help others avoid my mistakes.
i do not have any touching start up stories, just got attracted by the challenge of it and wanting focus and a way to edit my hideous old perennial areas into something more structured and beautiful year round. all of which i have achieved thru clems and woody shrubs.