Archive 2002
Though still very early, some plants are already producing strong bud growth:
1. C. viticella 'alba luxurians' buds - look at the number of buds arising from a single node area.
2. C. pitcherii seedling: I've removed the uppermost layer of grit so that the new shoots can be seen more clearly; this growth is very early, and can be managed by pruning, in due course. Some shoots may yet be killed in the event of a hard frost.
big file = a short while to load
Item 22/12/2
Next year's large-flowered hybrid clematis seedlings, dormant.
Below, C. serratifolia seedheads in Winter, now ready for harvesting.
You might leave some seedheads for your local birds.
G107B finally catches up sister 107C (below, 5/10/2) with a first flower:
This one (in the early flowers, anyway), has a much more pronounced red margin to the reflexed tips.
Item 27/11/2
1. Mature seeds of Mrs Cholmondeley:
2. At the end of the season your new (12 months +) seedlings will look a bit jaded, this is wholly due to the onset of colder winter weather, and, since it will all rot anyway, this foliage should be removed. A couple of evening's frost usually kills the foliage. It won't affect the buds on the root crown, though. Worthwhile vines can be retained for early flowers.
3. Just when you think it's all over, along comes C. anchuensis (I have also seen written C. anchunensis) to begin producing flowers. This plant ideally needs more sheltered conditions.
This plant is evergreen.
Item 23/11/2
New Seedling G67, (at Nov 3rd): raised as C. patens, second year flowers
Item 8/11/2
Seedling G30C, (species) C. confusa (listed in Grey-Wilson). Plant grown from seed received direct from Himalayas expedition 1998. Germinated 24/3/99. Germination time 83 days.
Item 5/11/2 Seedling G93C - much better picture - first image especially.
Plant washed down, ready to send in post:
Plant now owned by Mrs Marie-France Holt, in Canada.
Item 31/10/2
Settling-in newly-arrived bare-rooted seedlings/cuttings. Thank you, clematis friends! One-litre pots usually work fine, for small plants. Some foliage may survive the journey. Re-pot, immediately on receipt, into fresh, moist medium. If you cater for the root, all else follows naturally.
Item 30/10/2
A late new C. patens (seed collected wild in Japan), seedling G93C, manages first flowers, before the winter frosts begin. Two similar photos.
Seedling G73E, another daughter of King Edward VII, also manages a (weather-affected!) flower, just before the onset of Winter.
Item 19/10/2
Even at late October, seedling G98B still willingly tries to put forth a first flower, though whether it will be in time to survive the onset of Winter; maybe, maybe not.
G107 C New viorna-group seedling:
New viticella seedling, first flowers, October 2002:
How resilient clematis seedlings are; a tiny (large-flowered hybrid x) plant re-emerges a couple of weeks after the main stem (to right, at base, of new main stem) was accidentally broken! Clumsy, but lucky on this occasion!
Item 17/10/2
Email enquiry Bill Roberts - C. texensis, all-red form, my seedlings as they then were, in 2000 - from young the difference is still plain. The other forms are on the species page.
Plant 125 Plant 126
Item 16/10/02
Flashback to July; 250 clematis seedlings moved from greenhouses to watering positions, whilst on summer holiday abroad for two weeks! A big task, but it sure makes it easier for my marvellous neighbour, Ken, to water them each day!
Item 11/10/02 Flashback to Summer 2001
Madame Edouard André, Blue Angel, and Golden Tiara on the pergola
Item 5/10/2
Seedling G107C produces first flowers
Pink at the base, creamy green toward the recurved tips, creamy green within.
Item 30/9/2
C. akebiodes at last produces some flowers.
(In fact, although I was more or less 'about to give up on it' after awaiting flowers for a couple of years, I notice that the plant is now covered with flowers, from top to bottom, possibly I'm a bit northerly, or maybe even the best is still yet to come.)
Item 29/9/2
C. connata in flower. This is one of those clematis which can attain enormous proportions, and whose flowers are small, but very numerous. Although not individually showy, the flowers, en masse, are a sight to behold. The whole plant becomes utterly covered from head to toe in a myriad of thousands and thousands of flowers.
Item 11/9/02
New hybrid, daughter of C. 'Joan Baker', from earlier germinations.
Items 6/9/2
C. serratifolia comes into copious flower; what luck to get a fine, floriferous form of this lovely yellow-flowered (meclatis) clematis species, as a seedling from my germinations! This plant germinated in 1998, only 30 days after sowing, and flowered the very first year. The plant flowers better each year, even without special attention, just some manure in Spring. Prune right to the ground each year. A great plant to try for one of your first germinations - easy and superb. Clearly I'll have a lot of seed available, again, this year.
There are a few spellings of this name - see if you can spot Clematis 'Sizaja Ptitsa' (it means "the blue bird") mingling with the sweet peas. This plant is a Beskaravainaja plant from 1980; parentage is "Durandii" x Lanuginosa Candida:
Item 2/9/2
Interesting information about Clematis in colder climes.
Source: British Clematis Society Journal, 1992
Once you have clicked on the small image to enlarge, you can then "right-click" and select "print picture" on the article proper.
Item 31/8/2
Using posts, using vertical space. Nothing new, people have been growing more-vigorous clems on posts for ever.
Below, some young orientalis-type plants on posts. The plants were put in in April '01, so are still babies, but they are already beginning to look a bit more established, and flower well. Though these plants are still young, in some cases the pole is now invisible during the growing season.
The posts have had a cylinder of wire mesh attached down the length, the plant "forms a plant" with only very little guidance, and is stable even in fairly rough winds. I copied this idea from someone else's plants I saw growing. Those plants were on poles with nothing but a bit of chicken wire attached, and yet they were magnificent plants. The plants here are already throwing up vines from the ground. Still got the focusing problem with the new camera, but at least they are all consistently out of focus!
(Baby) Bill Mackenzie on a post, the post just visible, the wire, invisible. Plant is 14 months old, first full season. This time next year the plants will (hopefully) be two or three times as bushy, and dense, just like the C. akebiodes in the pictures below.
Same plant from the other direction; also, first-year baby plants of tangutica Lambton Park and Golden Harvest. The spare posts now colonised by C. fasciculiflora and Montana Wilsonii, planted Sept '02.
C. akebiodes (on right of each photo) (planted as seedling 24/6/00), just before flowering. The post and wire mesh supporting the plant are completely hidden by the growth. Same plant from two angles. It is a triternata meeting it at the arch, you can just make out the flowers. Triternata is a wonderfully scented plant, great for an entrance arch. Your visitors are bowled over by the perfume, with their very first step into the garden.
A batch of viticellas on an enormous vertical fence (poles with wire mesh stretched between); the fences look a bit bare at first, (its only a bit of my plants-overflow area) but once the plants get going, the fences melt away:
June 7th thro' August 31st
Item 30/8/2
Getting ready for next year. 64 brand new large-flowered hybrid seedlings, all ready to flower for the very first time from March 2003 or so, onwards. (Actually, one or two have flower buds now, and will flower before the end of the current season).
Item 29/8/2
Essential article covering the small-flowered yellow clematis (Orientalis group = Meclatis group). This essay, by Christopher Grey-Wilson, will take anyone from nought, to overview, ready for reading Grey-Wilson or Johnson's 'Genus Clematis' respectively. Bear in mind the article is from 1986, so there have been a few minor taxonomical name-changes, but that doesn't at all diminish the value of the text. Click on the small image to enlarge.
Article from the International Clematis Society Journal, Newsletter Vol. 3, December 1986.
If your brain is a bit slow, like mine, you might need to read the article a few times to take it all in (well, not ALL of it! just the main points!); however, once you get the main principles (the species) up, it will stand you in good stead for whatever questions ever arise about this plant group, and its hybrid cultivars.
You can just "right click" and "print picture" also.
Another good reason to join the Societies, and buy the back-issues of the Journals.
Item 22/8/02
Helen Hadley's C. crispa (big file = few moments to load up)
Item 20/8/2
Prince Charles, after the rain, this evening. Plant growing up plain vertical wire mesh fence around 9 feet in height. Plant is about 6-7 feet wide. Planted 27/2/99.
Prince Charles and Vostok, about to burst into flower, at 29/07/2:
Items 10/8/2
raised as C. versicolor, flowers
Item 8/8/2
Maturing alpina seed, two similar photos
Item 31/7/2
C. viticella alba luxurians in flower; can't yet get consistency with this new digital camera for focusing on such subjects, and I'll replace this image with a proper scanned photo-image, when they come back from the developer's. But although a bit vague this is how C. vit. a.l. can cope with your front area:
Item 29/07/2
Moira Gilsenan's new hybrid (two similar pictures)
Item 28/07/02
L & S 13342 coming into flower:
Item 18/07/02 A few C. fusca-types in flower:
Item 11/7/02
Montana seed - slightly unripe and a bit out of focus, sorry!
Seeds, still attached to parent:
Item 10/7/2 Seedling G97B raised from seed marked C. viorna
Item 8/7/02 Bill Mackenzie
Item 2/7/02
Another C. florida grown from seed See also other florida (click to go to)
Item 28.6.02
Item 17/6/02
C. tangutica 'Lambton Park' early flowers
Seedling B1 coming back into flower:
Item 15/6/02
Formation of seeds in large-flowered hybrids:
failed seeds - not fertilised... ..seed at base is small and hardly developed at all
More undeveloped, infertile seeds: The fertilised seeds (green, here = unripe yet) are plump and swollen; the duds do have a hairy tail, but no swollen base.
Item 12/6/02 C. connata just getting going into a fir
Almost-black early foliage of new (confirmed 11/02) C. confusa species seedling
Item 9/6/02 Some atragenes from recent germinations:
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Item 7/6/02
Blue Angel enquiry- here's a much better close-up:
Item 3/6/02 Prince Charles, just getting going:
Item 2/6/02
New blue hybrid S6 from earlier germinations. Nice this year.
New hybrid from earlier germinations:
Item 1/June/02
Mdme. Marie Boisselot on arch with roses
Item 31/5/2 Joan Picton
Item 31/5/02 Daniel Deronda
Item 27/5/2
New white hybrid from earlier germinations
Item 21/5/02
New hybrids from earlier years
New hybrid, uncertain flowers, below
Item 18/5/02
Clematis rehderiana takes over my side fence. Planted 1/3/98. Photographed September 2001.
Item 15/5/2
Tetra-rose as a hedge
Item 20/5/02
Articles here: Clematis from cuttings (2); clematis in containers - at bottom of page.
Good article on propagating clematis by taking cuttings, by Jan van Acquoi
Cuttings - another most informative article on making cuttings work. From the past, but still as valid.
Item 16/5/02
New plant P30 latest flowers...
Item 6/5/02
Re-emergence of some viornae and others. Photos from 6/5/02
C. akebiodes first:
At 6/5/02 One week later.. another week.. 2 or 3 wet days later.. at 31/5: at June 12:
C. akebiodes planted as seedling 24/06/00. What a plant! A small seedling planted just 2 years ago now has a root occupying a circular area of 30" diameter, all the area of which is producing new vines! Last year the plant attained 3 yards in height, goodness knows what it will do this year.
Below: Blue Angel, planted 6/3/99
At 6/5/02.. at 20/5/02... at 3/6/02 at 7/6:
Below: C. crispa, planted 23/6/99 as seedling (next to pitcherii, fusca, crispa ( 2), all to left)
At 6.5.02 At 17.5.02 at 31/5 at 7/6 at 10/6 at 17/6
Below: Duchess of Albany planted 18/5/99 as 2 years old plant. Vigour. This plant usually attains about 3 to 4 metres x 1.5 to 2 metres. The last photo is a snap to give an idea of what these plants look like in mid-summer.
At 6/5/02 at 27/5/2 31/5 At 7th June at 10/6: at 17/6: at midsummer
Above, C. pitcherii, planted 26/6/99 as a seedling.
Above, C. fusca, very robust stems, planted as 2 years old bought plant 17/7/99
Below, Princess Diana, just getting going, (between Gravetye and Duchess of Albany); planted as 2 years old bought plant 27/5/99
6/5/02 at 27/5/2: at 31/5: at 3/6/02: at 7/6:
Below: Gravetye Beauty: planted 27/5/99, 2 years old bought plant.
At 6/5/2: at 31/5/2: at 7/6: at 17/6:
Below: C. versicolor, planted as seedling 24/02/01.
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End of series.
Item 20/4/02
Clematis in containers articles
end