ClematisGuru's 2009 Hardwick Hall Clematis Garden

thanks sharkey. i didn't realize how the downpours had effected that big nelly and combo caraby till i saw the photo. looks poorly.
hf young does in some light is almost a true blue to me. there are times when it looks more dark lavender, but it has a very pretty color. as blue as durandi for me.

john warren is a favorite of mine. i think there is a tiny royalty out in the trial area, if it blooms will post. here is john warren taken today. there is a bloom close up posted on this thread from a few days ago. it is a show stopper.

there is another clem in the photo above too, unzen. not a very vigorous clem, i do not recommend it.
here is a pretty flower , put asao in last fall. hope it grows up to be like doss's asao, the prettiest i have even seen.

here is a different nelly planting also in bloom now, taken today shows nelly better, this one in partial shade.

Such amazing beauty Guru......Your HF young is sooooooo pretty! Love love love that colour!!!

Just curious to know why your Nelly Moser is a bit yellowish on the leaves - does that mean too much water? I had that happen with one of my clematis last year and I wasn't sure why it happened.

I have to admit...although I wanted the Betty Corning I am glad I did not buy her for my tuteur. I think she would have been too overwhelming for it. LOL.....can't wait to see yours in bloom!!!

you have selected some great clems dawn, hf young, julia c and blue angel. yes, betty is very vigorous after a couple of years. she can over take anything. i have her on a cedar that is about 8 feet tall and she can also go on to the board fence. yesterday i put 8 foot ornamental pole to the front, which she will go up and cascade over.

i think the nelly down there need magnesium and iron. we have had such heavy rains and there may be some issue with that too. it doesn't look quite as bad in person as it does in the pic. last night i sprayed it with bayer 3 in 1 rose spray (i hardy ever spray clems unless they have mildew). today i am giving epson salts too. i am torn between trying to feed as mentioned, pick off the worst of the leaves vs just take her down and let her grow back.

i have a few other getting epsom today as they are yellowish, i think it is the big rains we have had downpours maybe .....

here is a nice big purple clem that opened yesterday, after the downpour the prior day. probably the president,my markers got mixed up down there. this is the first of my presidents to open this year.

Yes it looks like The President to me.....such a nice clematis.

have been out digging up some clem roots that didn't show yet and enjoying the great weather. i noticed i have a fireworks with some blooms. looking stronger this year, that one has been blahh. also multi blue starting to bloom and ruby glow amazing me, this is my second year with it and i can't even remember any blooms or anything much last year. here is fireworks...

ruby glow today. the blooms mature well, and keep getting prettier as they do.

today joesphine really started opening there are oodles of buds not open, but this is a clem that gets less attention than the others due to location. in ground 7 years. a very healthy josephine.

one of the healthy blooms at closer view. love to watch them change as they open.

as i wrapped up in the garden today, couldn't help but take another shot of guernsey cream. the flowers have been through a lot of heavy rain, but are holding up well. i love the changes with these blooms too from pistachio, to white to creamy white as they mature.
niobe started to open today, multiblue too. all seems normal except for the nighttime weather in the mid thirties predicted for tonight or tomorrow night. clems are so hardy and we never seem to get as cold as the predictions.

That one really has an interesting flower. My mom has that one in her garden...she put it in last fall....hard pruned this year and does have a little new growth (same as mine) happening. I am looking forward to seeing hers in bloom as well....

That is one stunning clematis, CG.

ClematisGeru

Just stumbled across this forum, and wondering if you have a favorite place you purchase your Clematis from. They all look so wonderfully healthy.

Deann

deann, welcome to the clematis forum. do you have some clems already?
if not, or you are just getting your feet wet with the i recommend the following.
1. see what clems your local better nursery may have in one gallon or bigger pots well rooted out. they will usually be selling a plant that is a proven clem for your area. do not be seduced by bargain baby plants or "liners" as they are called in the trade.
2. if you can not find any gallons in your area, or after you buy some and want to get varieties that they do not provide, then order from silver start vinery in yacolt , wa. they ship the biggest root, already pruned off with great instructions. the owner is a resource too for questions etc.
3. as you get your learning curve going with clems, add brushwood garden vines, they ship a plant bigger than a liner, but not as big as ssv's rorots. you have to prune them off ourselves when you plant them.
4. at some point you can buy clems anywhere if you want to put the time in to the start up and attrition of the "little liners", but in the beginning for faster results this is what i recommend. no sense in starting with mail order if there is a better nursery with well rooted gallons in your area......most of the clems in my pics are 4 to 8 years old, so there is a patience curve to be expected. welcome to the clem forum!

ville de lyon is pushing the season by opening a few of her thousands of buds. this is my most floriferous, oldest clem in the garden in place of pride right next to the garage door, visible from front of house. a really reliable and easy clem. i do hard prune this clem every other year after blooming and it comes back for an impressive second round. this year will be a hard prune for it in july. the alternate year i try and deadhead as much as i can and take a few vines down by half their height in july. this has worked well for this clem, in the spring i just clean up broken or damaged vines and take the top foot or two off some of them.

dawn, you mentioned your mom having a guernsey cream....i never prune the guernseys. i did hard prune one after blooming last year and it came back with a few blooms in a second round but it is still regaining size, vigor and did not bloom a lot this spring. it is the clem i clean up the least of any.

I just love that clematis.....look at all the buds too!!!

No no sorry my mom has Josephine.....when we posted the posts crossed so it looks like I meant GC but it was Josephine.

All your Clematis are gorgeous! They're definitely putting on a floral show! Mine are finally producing some blooms. I'll post some tonight. Sorry, it was a busy weekend!

Clematisguru........thank you for the warm welcome. I myself have quite a few clematis growing in my garden, and always looking for something more or different. I fell in love with the Guernsey Cream, and imagine my surprise to discover that Raymond J. Evison is the one who cultivated this magnificent flower.

I have Mr. Evison's book CLEMATIS FOR SMALL SPACES and had the opportunity to go to a lecture he was talking at in Michigan. Myself and two other gardeners from my area traveled about 170 miles in a snow storm to hear him speak. We had already purchased tickets for an entire day of speakers put on by Horticultural Magazine. Was well worth the drive and what the hay, whats a few inches of snow, we Michigian folk are use to the snow.

I checked out both websites you suggested, and Silver Star is the only one to carry Guernsey Cream. I will check with some local places in the coming weeks.

By the way, your gardens are to die for...

Deann

thanks all, hope you stay on the form, deann. i would have driven too to hear him speak.
we hit 37 degrees at 6 am when i got up. walked al the gardens, everybody looks ok, so i guess they took it in stride!

Ville de Lyon has got to be one of my favorites of the ones you have posted so far. I'm curious about your choice of pruning every other yr. I haven't had clems long enough to have to prune any yet, but I thought Group 3's were hard pruned every year. Do you do this because of the large size of the vine?

CG -- I'm really enjoying your postings. Keep the photos coming!!

BTW, has your garden ever been featured in a gardening magazine? If not, it should be!

figaro, sharkey thanks.
while it is a type 3,i just learned over the years i get earlier blooms and a good second bloom period if i prune it hard after the main period and in the spring do a big clean up, reducing it by a third to a half in circumference and height as well.
i can't believe it is blooming already! every other year i prune it really hard, all the way down after blooming and the next year more like i did in the spring.
it is a very consistent clem. my other ville's, smaller and in groupings with other type 3's get the late winter hard prune. this one is stand alone, well almost, but nothing growing on it and it gets special treatment.
as linda beutler would say "free style" pruning. in fact the first time i hard pruned it was after blooming and it looked horrible about 5 years ago and i just whacked it off and was amazed a the regrowth and second bloom period.

thanks again. no on the gardening mag question..hubbie has too many unfinished hardscape projects for us to consider it "finished" but i do have a couple of garden clubs coming to see the clems this year!

haven't been outside this morning, but it was 40, a few degrees warmer than previous night, so no frost issues. last night i took a photo of guernsey cream in the twilight that shows how the bloom change as they mature.
will be outside this afternoon trimming small shrubs.
spring has been wonderful here this year. a true spring vs bolt to summer.

WOW! Gurernsey Cream really shines in the twilight! She's spectaculor! I've always read good reports about this Clematis.

Still chilly here at night. We had around 44 degrees this morning! It's suppose to warm up a bit toward the end of the week. We've had a glorious Spring too! Usually by the beginning of May, we jump into instant Summer also!

shirley guernsey is problem free clem. one of the ones i rarely even nip and tuck on. i have pruned after blooming and gotten some late blooms, but i find for me in zone 5 it is better to not prune her at all. in warmer areas , some prune back hard after blooms and get a great second show. i love guernsey.

josey is good for me this year too. very healthy looking blooms and oodles of them coming on from low to high, about 5 to 6 feet climbing thru a common climbing hydrangea on a west facing wall. pretty protected. here are the blooms today, starting to open more fully. one thing i like about josey is that the bloom last a long time, and as mentioned keep changing as they mature.

last time i'll post clair de lune and hakuooken this season, but they continue to amaze me. in the garden this morning , the light was good and i snapped a last shot of them for 09. hakuooken has been a very slow to establish clem, so glad to have some action and i like the accidental combo they make.

the cold weather has delayed blooms but not caused any other issues. i like the late blooms vs too early like some years. gives me more time to get the bug spring chores under control before they all come on strong.

hf young is holding back on all her blooms, guess the weather factor. right now she has low and high blooms. this one is on an old crabapple growing with a chocolate vine that i nip and tuck prune all year long to keep in check and allow the clem to be on the front of the planting. there are probably 3 hf youngs in there, 2 planted an d1 layered. 4 year old display.

gillian blades first 09 blooms. the others will be along. i love this clem. it was one of the first i ever planted, and i had to move it a few years ago. one of those "hardy but not vigorous" that takes a while to establish.....

an alabast (poulala) clematis that shows the early season weather stress. this is her first 09 bloom and the sepals are not up to par. later blooms will be huge and not curly like these little sepals that did not like weather. the difference in the later blooms will be marked.
this clem is not that common and i love it. it is more reliable for me than candida lanuginosa as a white with huge blooms.

the philadelphius shrubs are being trained into a set of arches with the help of the lever loops! if the plants like the arches (they bloom on old wood and smell like orange blossoms) , then next spring i will plant clems on the sides sof the living arches. the regular 1 inch lever loop qvc clips, larger (see lever loop thread) really helped me get this going. the small white flowers will open in a couple of weeks.
i bare rooted these shrubs about 8 years ago, paid about 25 cents each for the bare roots.

Just beautiful! I also have a Philadelphus which has taken a very long time to bloom. When it finally did last year, it's blooms were heavenly fragrant. I only have one Philadelphus, but I like the idea of training them into a set of arches. That will be spectacular when they are in bloom and having Clematis creeping through the branches would be an added bonus! Do you feed your Philadelphus anything? Mine have been thriving on neglect!

i must admit mine have thrived on neglect also shirley. the blooms are on old wood, sometimes older than 1 year only, so i have also lost blooms before. my long, old wood,branches are covered in buds this year. i have been pinnning the branches into arches for over a month now and have had not effect to the branches, leaves or buds form it. it is a tolerant plant. now i am watering and smiling at them with fertilizer, which is probaby the first i have ever given them!

What type of fertilizer are you using?

i use GRO POWER, bloom and gro formula in the spring on clems and important blooming plants, other formula also in fall
use holly tone on boxwood and evergreens that get fertilized (not all do)
am using some miracle grow on some impatiens i put in (haven't used it in years and just got it for some shrubs and stuff that are usually neglected and the impatiens (which i also have not grown in years)
use ironite and epsom on sickly looking clems

the philidelphius got bloom and gro this spring which shows their increased status around here. i order it form high country gardens,no one here carries it.
would love to compare notes with others on what they use!

well, today hit 88 , after low in the mid 30's a few days ago. soem clems are showing some effect the cold winter and unusual spring. but that is too be expected. sometimes damage from a late cold snap show up when the plant is stressed, like todays 88 degree surprise. been out watering instead of the planned chores and pinching off leaves that look sad. of course one thing leads to another and spotted a suspected insect problem on a couple of clems that i will treat after the sun goes down. al this said the warmer weather is starting to bring out the beauties as well as the beasts.
here is multiblue blooming single, but with the usual huge boss. this is because i trimmed parts of the plant back in early spring to rid it of winter damage.

here is another bloom from the same multiblue plant, blooming doubelish and showing the lighter central bar that full sun brings out in the sepals.

here is a long blooming nelly moser, with a floriferous, yet smaller flowered josephine and carnaby all in one display. these plants showed the effect of the heavy rains, yet are doing their best. would like to hack them all off and let the plants get a new start and will soon, but the display is pretty enough to keep around for awhile.

photo was not attached to above message re nelly, josey and carnaby