Flower Power : Clematis

 

Now Clematis

 

SWOON.

 

I think I’d probably look at a Clematis flower and/or entire plant in full bloom rather than even goggle a picture of George Clooney. 

 

That’s just how high these guys rank on a scale of from here to that bit of outer space that they lost this week. 

 

Can you remember when you first gazed on this splendour?  Does this I wonder fall into the same category as you remembering where you were when you heard about Marilyn/JFK/Princess Di/Michael Jackson (select correct decade as appropriate). 

 

I recall with distinct clarity the exact moment I lost my Clematis cherry.  While sitting on my patio minding my beeswax a voice holler’d from across the neighbouring boundary, “if you don’t want all that stuff trailing in your garden, no worry, just chop it down if it’s annoying you”.  I glanced behind and -  BO-ING  -  BO-ING  -  my eyes nearly popped out of my head.  Jeepers I came face to face with a

giant and magnificent Nelly Moser in full blaze of glory tumbling over and cascading down the wall. 

 

It was love at first sight. 

 

To this day I remain astonished that coming from a family of garden enthusiasts I’d never encountered this plant before but safe to say that no garden I’ve had ever since would be complete without it’s fair share of big blousy, sock it to you, in your face blooms tipping up every May to sprinkle a big load of floral magic into everyone's spring time. 

 

 They can't help looking adorable even when they've gone to seed (the same cannot be said to be true of the writer)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 There’s nothing like it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ve been very restrained here and have restricted ourselves to planting only 6 in this first year at least.  Including:

 

Also Crystal Fountain and Josephine in case you're interested

Nothing radical here, all very standard I know (no Montanas, for now at least), but sticking with the theme of pitching off the USG-Plot from a beginners perspective with only reliable varieties that anyone can do, have success with and enjoy.

 

 

We also have a Dr Ruppel taken from a root cutting from a very reliable plant that we had previously which was the only one of the Clematis that we brought here from a cutting and over-wintered in a pot to have survived.

 

 

The guy on the right didn't have such a cracking time of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here it is successfully positioned, showing no adverse effects.

 

If you have any experience of clematis you’ll have doubtless been hit at some time by the dreaded 'wilt'.  Clematis are renowned for it. 

 

For those uninitiated, the little rascals can have an intolerance to being transferred from their growing pot into their forever home and reward your efforts with a very petulant reaction; viz: curling up and dying. 

 

Not what you were hoping for but don’t be too discouraged if presented with such an ill tempered attitude from your little darling and above all, don’t be fooled, it's not dead, despite to all evidence to the contrary, it’s merely adjustment.  It cannot be guaranteed that normal life will be resumed in the same growing season but the plant will revive, the roots are all intact and will rejuvenate, maybe before it goes dormant, or maybe the following year and you will get many years of quality flowering ahead.

 

Despite the area chosen to plant these new additions here having a top dressing of gravel and membrane making the unturned earth beneath very cold, wet and extremely claggy all of the varieties we've introduced have remained unscathed and are not displaying any inclination to stamping around and throwing a hissy fit.  In fact it would be fair to say we're doubly amazed as were anticipating the worst, because if there is any area in the garden which is prone to boggy and inhospitable conditions, this would be it. 

 

Following aquarobics the other day I noticed the soles of my feet were all prune-wrinkles and that was after only an hour immersed in water.  Imagine a dear little Clematis, unceremoniously yanked from it's snuggly pot and dumped into such bleak conditions without displaying any negative effects.  Which while surprising is most welcome and a testament to these tried and trusted standards.

 

 

So far, so grow grow grow

If I had my way there’d be a constant stream of varieties opening, one after the other consecutively for 52 weeks of the year.  As one appears and develops to full bloom so another bursts open to succeed it, a bit like waves rolling on the shore.  A sort of Pachelbel’s Cannon of flowers, if you like, as one stanza begins so along comes a fresh Clematis to accompany it, rolling into the next and so on and so on.

 

As the music swells, while viewing each image, imagine yourself laying outside swathed in sunshine in your 2 acres of parkland with each of the varieties erupting!!!

OK - pause for reflection.

 

Don’t believe me?  Try it for yourself, listen to this and scroll : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Af372EQLck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going Potty

 

The days are marching on, the soil’s really warming up nicely and the seedlings we started off a few weeks ago (bless ‘em) are now very well established and needing pricking out, potting on and hardening off outside in the daytime but overnighting back inside to avoid a frosty tomato genocide.

So let's get cracking with that. 

 

 

General advice on when is the best time to do this is when the little plants develop their first pair of true leaves.  These serrated edge leaves will be recognisably different from the other little smooth leaves that appear on the sprout in the first weeks following germination.

 



Gently remove the young plant how ever is most comfortable for you but without touching the stem if possible and position in it's new pot.  You can handle the leaves at this stage which will be more resilient to damage than the stem which will not survive injury. 

If you're short of starter kits you can start your seeds off in cardboard egg boxes.  The roots will naturally grow through the cardboard, if kept damp and soggy, and as they're biodegradable, just tear round each mini pot, no need to remove the seedlings

 

simply transfer the entire young plant, together with the pot it was propagated in, across to it's new home. 

 

They are going to need plenty of summer sun to develop and fruit well, but so far at least things are progressing well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A voila - all done

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud

Nothing quite like it ........................ well that's true enough and happy are we that at last we've arrived somewhere with very friable soil.  This is quite the Rolls Royce of mud and such a luxury, I'm half tempted to boast about it in the Co-Op

"Oh, hello I'm your new neighbour.  Bet you'd like to be me right, forget the patio and room for a BBQ, we've got mud that just crumbles up in your fingers.  Eh? Eh?  You have a nice day now, y'hear"




May not endear me locally but you can only imagine my pride as previously we've only known claggy earth thick with clay and absolutely chock-a-block with stones and flints.  Quite literally more stone than earth, making it a near impossibility to dig deep enough to plant anything.
 

 

 

At last the new bed is fully complete so we can now get on with planning how we’d like our scheme to look and begin planting out. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, we have our lovely crumbly soil, but is it nutrient rich, this we don't know so we took the earlier precaution of enriching it with added matter and manure.  So maybe first thing, best rush out and buy a soil testing kit.  Right??

Wrong

SNERK

 

The pros will advise you that in unfamiliar territory this is the best thing to do to ensure that you use plants correctly suited to your soil type. 

 

Not happening.
 

You can check these kits out on line.  They can rush you around £80 a pop and that’s by no means the most expensive, some come in at £130.

 

£ker-ching

 

OUCH – they’ll not be seeing any 80 of my quids.  Think of all the new plant friends we could get for that and refer to Mulching (last post). 

 

They’re having us on. 

 

It’ll all work out with a bit of trial & error. Some plants will happily thrive and some will just turn up their toes and check out – no explanation needed.  They might tell you:
“it’s not you, it's me”
but however the mop flops you won’t get 100% success, the slugs and their snail mates will see to that. 

 

So keep your hand on your ha’penny and see next month's post (Cheap as Chips  http://imdiggingthis.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/cheap-as-chips.html ) for plant bargains galore.

 

Of course some plants do need specialist conditions.  We know that.  The most common one you’ll butt up against is the Rhodies, Azaleas and Camellias which require an ericaceous (or acid to simplify) soil, but you can get round that in a variety of ways.  By conditioning the soil around each plant, introducing a liquid feed at intervals or planting smaller varieties in a tub, enriched with the correct compost, where they’ll happily do sterling service for you for many years. 

 

 

 

We're using the separate beds we've created here at our USG-Plot as two distinct areas.  One for the perennials which we’ve chosen not to mix with the annuals, for this first year at least.  As a rule of thumb quite a lot of the more hardy plants, oriental poppies, herbaceous cornflowers, dicentra, iris and peonies together with many shrubs: for instance lilac, kerria, magnolia, forsythia and clematis are early flowering and tend to be finished by the beginning of June, so really just when you're outside enjoying the best of the summer most of the impressive showier blooms will be over.  The idea here then is to have one bed flowering which will then we superseded by a second drift of colour as the annuals begin showing of their best. 

Or to cut to the chase the Mexican Wave of gardening.

 

 

Working hard to avoid our most often repeated past mistake of overcrowding and smooching the plants up too close together to try and fit in the maximum amount, without giving them space to develop.  This always results in the stronger species completely dominating any more tender varieties which don't survive.

 

 

 

 

Spacing bulbs in between plants at this stage

1  For continued follow-on flowering and

2  For optimum spacing at this stage to make best use of available area

 

 

The established plants we're using here are a mixture of some root cuttings taken from our previous garden and brought with us, some of which survived the winter, some not. Together with a very few new additions bought this year. 

 

These consist of mainly failsafe varieties to give our new 2015 zero to hero garden the best possible chance of success.  No prima donnas of the plant world, big on attitude, short on results. 

 

Can't grow won't grow, then out you go.  

Time to get busy potting on .......................... See you there

  

 

To Mulch, or Not to Mulch..... That is the Question

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The weeds and droughts of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against an influx of nettles

And by opposing end them.  To die, to sleep

 

I’m not a mulcher.

 

 

 

 

Not really convinced of the advantages, in a small to medium suburban garden at least, (if you have close on half an acre and large swathes of shrub-land then possibly different rules apply).  I think they're having us on to be fair.  Selling back to us waste materials that would otherwise have to be disposed of; but while that point remains moot - what is for sure is that you're involving yourself in yet more expense and back-breaking lifting, trudging back from the garden centre with boot loads of it.

 

So you get all this stuff home and spread it about, and (supposedly) it helps retain the moisture.  What’s with all the advice everywhere about introducing materials to aid drainage?  We’re only just beginning to get to know our USG-Plot here but straight off we see that a bit of rain, and it all runs into a squelchy bog in the bottom corner, which co-incidentally is also the only part of the garden which enjoys periods of prolonged sunshine throughout the day, so is where the majority of the planting will be centred.  Retain moisture – maybe not. 

 

 

Further purported benefits of the mulch revolution is that it prevents weeds.

 

Really?

 

I’m noticing that determined healthy weeds are now materialising in among the areas of gravel we have here, which incidentally, also has the added benefit of a layer of weed deterrent membrane. 

 

 

 

 

If the dandelions can outsmart a fitted ground sheet and a ton of pebbles I’m not sure that some soggy, half rotten bark tatters will dissuade resolute brambles and knotweed from pushing their way to glory.  In fact in my experience little weedlets love the damp decayed environment that the mulch provides which, by it's very nature, is producing perfect conditions for them to flourish and they rapidly appear in a layer sprinkled all across the top of the so called weed deterrent matter, waving happily in the breeze.

 

No, I agree with myself …………….. I’m not a mulcher.

 

Conversely I do, possibly unnecessarily, like to enrich the soil ahead of any plantings. 





 A generous compost sprinkle is sufficient to convince me that fine and luscious nutrients have been introduced,

 

supplemented always with a dose of delicious chicken manure, such to adequately provide for the needs of our newly introduced plant friends

 

 

So, now's the time to start arranging and setting out the plants and to begin getting them settled into  position.

 

 

We'll be looking at that in more detail next time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strictly Come Planting

OK, so I get that this Amaryllis (strictly speaking) is not a garden variety but having waited almost 4 months for it to flower, just had to let it make a cheeky appearance here – seemed rude not to!

 

 

It’s important to understand the limitations of what you have in terms of your garden area, size and type and how this will restrict or enhance your plans and how to work around any difficulties to maximise on the positives, so ending up with the best solution for what you want and how you’d like it to look.  

 

 If you have limited space then best avoid huge clump forming shrubs which require space for their unexpected and ambitious spread.  Sounds obvious, I know, but when you see something gorgeously enticing displaying some irresistibly magnificent flower in the garden centre residing in a 6” pot it’s sometimes hard not to get carried away in the moment, little realising that within two or three years it could transform from an appealing and seemingly innocuous border specimen into a giant light engulfing, moisture guzzling thug with spreading tentacles that will obliterate all other life forms.

 

Your problem may be a very shady plot or one that is not free draining and therefore retains too much moisture.  Or, if you have a large area but are short on time then it may be best to retain a lot of lawn rather than being over ambitious in terms of planting up borders which are time intensive in terms of upkeep.

 

Our new USG-Plot here is north facing which always presents a challenge but luckily it’s not heavily shaded by established trees/shrubs overhanging from neighbours.  It will therefore be possible to use what natural light is available and in this instance it’s important to note in advance of planting which are the areas that are predominantly shaded and which attract the most prolonged sunshine throughout the day.

 

When selecting your plants it may be helpful to know that they are graded within certain classifications: 

 

 GENUS

 

SPECIES

 

VARIETY

 

FORM

 

CULTIVAR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the purposes of planting up your garden with attractive and healthy flowers and foliage you don’t necessarily need to understand what these classifications represent, however, as some plants can have a refusal to co-operate it could be argued that for the more laissez faire gardener it may be as well to introduce a re-classification which helps to indicate the general attitude and overall demeanour of our new garden member.............. Example:

 

COQUETTISH – Mesembryanthemum (flower opens in full sun)

 

OBLIGING – Petunia, Geranium (happy to help)

 

COURAGEOUS - Clematis (giving years of selfless devotion)

DEDICATED - Peony (immortal and indestructible)

INDOLENT – Delphinium (will they wont they?? - if the slugs don't get there first)

 

ENIGMATIC - Lupin (maybe the star of the show - maybe a 'no-show')

 

OBDURATE – Iris (you just never know with these bad boys)

 

 

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