Flowering Vines: Clematis

Flowering Vines: Clematis
So this week I decided to talk about my all time hands down favourite flowering vine, Clematis. Although I know these frighten away a lot of beginner gardeners, Clematis virtually look after themselves and as long as you plant them in the right places in your garden they will come back year after year and will triple or quadruple their size each year as well depending on how many hours of sunlight they get everyday. My only caution is:

Rule #1 DO NOT plant in full shade!!! They will still grow but at a much slower pace with spindly weak vines and very few blooms!! A total waste of your time!

Rule #2 Clematis NEED support. In other words, by year two or three it will need something to support it so it grows towards the sky and not along the ground. There are many ways yo accomplish this such as up against the house, a shed, a nice size tree trunk, a trellis, an arbor etc. I will put some examples of ours in the pics!!

Rule #3 Feed them!! Clematis need to be fed/fertilized to help them along, especially in the first few years. I refuse to buy those over priced containers of commercial fertilizers. Who knows what type of fertilizer works best? Not Canadian Tire let me tell you. How do they know what works best for every type of plant? Only you can figure that out by having multiple samples of your soil tested yearly for momeral content, acidity, alkalinity etc..I stay old school by using my own makeup c of composted soil, shrimp manure(YES SHRIMP MANURE) egg shells banana peels, coffee grinds and ash mainly as well as small amounts of natural ingredients if not needed in the composter.

Rule #4 Keep them well watered!!! Especially when they are first planted.

Rule #5 Stay away from the parking lit garden center. First they only sell what sells for them so you get a very disappointing selection and also because all these force grown plants that are grown in greenhouses and fed who knows what will disappoint you. The first year they look awesome but then you take home and plant in different soil, without the industrial miracle grow and all the other factors that force their growth. The loss of those things and the shock of its roots having room to.grow and expand send them into a shock state that could take years to fully recover from!! But you see it looking so awful that midway through year two you feel like you killed it and it gets dug up and disposed of!! Right??

Your growers will have much more beautiful colors and levels of healthineds and will be much much cheaper!!!
Go early because they always sell out fast!!!
So that’s my little sales pitch for the Clematis!
No garden? No room in your garden? No Problem!@ They do very well in patio pots as well!!!
*Clematis are easy to dig up split and transplant*
*If your clematis is getting too big for your liking wait until after the first frost and cut it right down to the ground*