early blooming clems

well, there are signs of spring but we started out this morning at 15 degrees, and snow is forecasted tomorrow. the clems are taking in the extended hours of sunlight however, and warming trend....putting out little pre buds on old wood with whiteish , furry covering. hope they take their time, way too early round these parts.
thought i'd post my earliest blooming clem, Macropetala Markam's Pink.
This was one of my first clems ever purchased and i grew it in a large pot for a few years. it will be blooming by the end of april and is usually my first.
i rarely prune it. just nip off damaged vines.
the earlier the clem blooms the less that should be done to it, it is telling you it blooms on the oldest wood...older than last year. this clem never re blooms and i do not encourage it to.
the first show is enough, always a welcome to the clem season which takes off rapidly after this one announces "game on"!

Such pretty delicate looking blooms! Oh and my favourite colour - pink!!! Thanks for sharing.

Nice niobe. Me likes. :D

Niobe

Marhams' Pink is beautiful! How old is she? I have put in a couple of the macropetala last year and ordered some this year. Can't wait for mine to have filled in a nicely as your's has. She is gorgeous!



Carolyn

this Markam's pink is about 8 years old. got it from chalk hill on my first shipment of clems ever. grown in a pot for a few year, so it had a big transplanting upset. i have found it to take awhile to establish)don't they all) but then to be very low maintenence.
no wilting ever. and as mentioned before, i rarely do ad pruning on it. it is next to an alpina odorato, which is a blueish alpina. so i kind of think of them as my clem gallery's "pinky and blueboy"
ordorato is less vigorous for me.
for some reason i do not have a photo of odorato, will get one this spring. they bloom at the same time.

You're certainly "in the pink" with this early bloomer! Very nice picture. Thanks for sharing it with us!

thanks shirley. your season will probably get off to a start slightly before mine. i am sooo looking forward after this long, cold dormant season.
i just saw a white macropetala on a web site i am dying to have . it is called "memms", but the site "Pride of Place" is whole sale only. they have some beauties i am dying to have, including the white macropetala......

Yes, the couple of Clematis containers I have in my un-heated garage have already broken dormancy. I haven't noticed if the Clematis in my garden are still asleep. Usually by St. Patrick's day is when they start to wake up and I give them their first feeding after a long Winter's slumber.

"Pride of Place" maybe whole sale, but eventually they sell to retail markets. It's just a matter of time.

i'm posessed with getting some clems from place of pride sooner than that. i have a list of about 25 i made from the site that i MUST have they have an triternata (spell check on that)that is a different color than rubromarginata...really nice. some great cultivars i have never seen available. and they have betty ridson, whihc woul not make me covet omoshiro less , but it is still a MUST have.
i swore i wasn't adding a lot this spring, but i have already ordered a few from plants delight too and silver star. must get control, need to get all the newbies from last fall established.

oh well. spring will be about adding as well as taking care of everyone, but then i swear i will not add any thing fall. i prefer spring planting anyway. i have a better success rate with that.

Have anyone grown Clematis tangutica. 'Radar Love'? I bought seeds from Parks but don't know anything about the plant. I know that it needs stratification and is slow to germinate.

Is it worth having for the blooms? How easy is it to grow. According to Park, it flowers the first season from sowing. I am in zone 4, Wyoming.

here is golden tiara, which i believe is similar to radar love. it can be mounding, is quite vigorous.
mine spills over a high retaining wall versus climbs. it would be quite happy to climb, but is also happy to sprawl and mound.
have never grown from seed, but is there a clem that is not worth the effort?

That is simply gorgeous Niobe! I think you must have every colour out there....looks very nice going over the wall like that.

golden tiara is a foolproof clem. never wilts, not fussy. the bloom is very pretty up close as this pic shows.

niobe
Thanks so much for sharing. Pretty. Love it. I hope it is similar. The seeds are sown but will take quite awhile for them to germinate since they need stratification. Got the flat by a window in my unheated garage. I didn't sow all the seeds...just incase

BEautiful Niobe. Thanks for the photos. I was just sitting on the patio this morning and noticing that the Montana under the eaves is pushing out new growth. Thank goodness I got off all of the dead leaves on it a couple of weeks ago. It's so much prettier without the old leaves and it's well worth the effort.

doss, so jealous you can have montanas in your climate. i have a montana spoonerii which is one of the more hardy ones.it comes back each year but never blooms. it takes the plant all summer to recover from dormancy. it appears late, the regrowth on the spoonerii....a month later than any of my clems (just too cold for it to come out and play)

once when my husband and i were in big sur we were hiking up a hillside and came across an abandoned cottage COMPLETELY COVERED with a pale pink montana....
it was a sight to behold and an experience i will never forget.

ah, what a great memory. think of me when you are enjoying your montana....sooo jealous.....

I didn't realize that the montanas were frost sensitive. The cabin sounds really lovely and you were lucky to find it in bloom as they bloom for a very short time. Sure hope that mine doesn't take over the house though! So far so good. :-)

Montanas are rated down to about a zone 6. Yes, they are frost sensitive, but some Montana varieties can take a cold snap better than others.