Re: Future trends?--clematis

In a message dated 7/25/2006 6:28:33 P.M.  Eastern Standard Time, 
aete@northnet.org writes:
Thanks for these tips.   I will try the compost.  I used all I had in 
amending a large  bed.  What can I buy bagged at the 
store?  Humus?  Humus and  cow manure?  I can get llama manure from a 
nearby farm.  It's been  offered free but I haven't tried it yet. 
Maybe at the end of the  season?

===>Get started making some now and then use it in the spring.  I am leery of 
store-bought manures and composts. I just don't know what's in  them. The 
last thing I want to do is bring in some new weedseed.
You've  confirmed something I wondered about -- weeding causing 
problems.  I  noticed this in previous years as well but thought it 
must be a coincidence  of timing, couldn't see how weeding would be a 
problem -- the clematis roots  are deeper than the weed roots around 
them, and the base stems still have  shade afterward in most cases.  I 
thought maybe voles were eating the  roots after I loosened the 
soil.  One clematis even decided to give up  on the stems it had grown 
already and grew nothing this year subsequent to  my weeding =gently= 
around it.

===>It doesn't seem to matter how  gentle you are--any root disturbance seems 
to be bad for clematis. Whether the  sudden exposure of more light that was 
previously shaded by the weeds is also a  factor, I don't know.


On the other hand, I cleared out an weedy  out-of-the-way bed 
entirely, giving up on two clematis that were apparently  not going to 
show up.  I even took their trellis away.  To make a  long story 
short, I had to put the trellis back.  A couple weeks later  I found 
them both crawling along the bare dirt among new weeds in this  
neglected garden.  These two happen to be Ville de Lyon and Comtesse  
de Bouchard, and they are looking quite happy right now.  So this  
would be a garden that doesn't comform to your 100%  results.

===>And that's one of the challenges of gardening, isn't it?  It always seems 
to be the case that what works for one person doesn't for the  next.


What do you think about training on metal wire loosely spiraled  up a 
post?  I'm suspicious some clematis do not like the metal.  I  have 
several different types of trellises -- I like old-fashioned straight  
wood trellising attached to a building, or tuteurs, or arbors for the  
clematis.  A new vine combo I like is C.v. Venosa Violacea growing  
with Ampelopsis 'Elegans' on an arbor.

===>You might have  something there. Without going out and looking, it seems 
that the ones on wood  do seem to do better than the ones on metal. On the 
other hand, the healthiest,  most vigorous clematis I have is on a metal trellis 
braced to an aluminum  downspout. Go figure! But that is also a very moist 
spot and there is also  Virginia creeper going up the downspout with it, so the 
shading factor may also  be operating.
Bill Lee  

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