EARLY FLOWERING CLEMATIS

The President is looking lovely at present so no apologies for showing him off with three photos.

Nelly Moser is looking particularly good again this year despite having had a few weeks of rather bright sunshine and heat which does tend to make stripey clematis fade more noticeably.

Josephine is always a favourite of mine because my mum bought it for me not long before she died. She would often call me Josephine if she wanted to wheedle me into doing something.

Marie Boissolet has a slightly unusual shape to it's petals more rounded than many clematis.

and that lovely hint of green stripe down the middle of each petal.

Poor Niobe was damaged a bit in the autumn accidentally pruning it when trying to tidy up the ivy. So far this is the only flower and as you can see a bit ravaged.

A new acquisition last year Bell of Woking, a bit miss formed but rather a big blousey clematis which has grown quite rampantly. Living not far from Woking I decided it was a nice one to add to my collection. I think my collection totals 50 at the latest count but I am sure I will find the odd spot for more.

Not an especially good photograph of HF Young but it has grown into quite a big clematis from a one year old seedling that was given to me. You can see the perennial problem I have with columbine and this is after I had pulled out arms full of it.

Mrs N Thompson is a great colour and does well in a fair bit of shade because it helps to keep it's lovely colour.

The colours are not so obvious in the first photo with wet petals as it is in the next.

Wadas Primrose is a fairly new acquisition, a couple of years ago, the plate sized flowers are really quite striking

Quite a good colour which works well under the Gleditsia especially as it's leaves tend to be a similar shade of green.

The final one flowering is Special Occasion, it is one in it's third year and really struggling to grow. I don't think it was meant to be very vigorous and another that has had it's petals eaten I suspect by earwigs but not sure. I have planted it at the base of a Eucalyptus thinking the colours would be great together. Although I will keep the Eucalyptus well pruned I doubt this poor soul will ever get up into it's lower branches for the colour scheme to work.

Last years post can be found here here here here and here so lots for me to look forward to.

In the first clematis post I seem to have called Wadas Primrose, Gillian Blades so apologies to anyone who may be confused by this wrongly named clematis.