Wayside Gardens Voices

Tips for Growing Clematis

Clematis vines are, of course, some of my favorite flowering vines: they're very easy to care for, and they produce absolutely amazing and varied flowers.  One of the most common questions I get, though, is from readers who are confused about when to prune their particular Clematis.  They know that pruning will help with the diminishing shows that some Clematis start to produce after a few years, but they find conflicting information on when to prune.  This is because you need to prune your vine based on when it blooms.  The simplest way to choose when to prune is this:

• If your Clematis blooms in the spring, then it is in Group 1.  It sets blooms on the previous year's growth, and needs to be pruned just after it finishes blooming for the year.  These can usually be cut back very severely.
• If your Clematis blooms in the summer or fall, then it is in Group 2.  These set blooms on new growth, and should be pruned either while dormant or just after coming out of dormancy.  These can usually be cut back pretty severely
• If your Clematis is a repeat bloomer, then it is in Group 3.  Determine which bloom season is most important to you (either based on the needs of your garden or the performance of your plant), and prune accordingly.  Keep in mind that Group 3 Clematis vines do not recover from pruning as well, and thus shouldn't be cut back anywhere near as drastically as those from the other groups.

Wisteria is Blooming

This is one of my very favorite times of the year.  Everything is really starting to come out here in South Carolina.  We've got White Dogwoods blooming strongly right now, and, of course, one of my favorite blooms of the year is out in force right now: Wisteria.  Around here we have Wisteria growing everywhere.  It peeks out from somewhere in almost every yard, it seems, and many of the pine groves around town have at least some of the amethyst or lilac-blue blooms on almost every tree.  Wisteria hangs off of trees all up and down the streets in the older parts of town, and sometimes a strong wind will dislodge small showers of the small purple petals.  The Wisteria bloom gets started across town, usually over the course of just a couple of weeks, just when the weather really starts to turn for the better.  The first few picnics and hikes of the spring are usually accompanied by Wisteria in Greenwood.  Growing Wisteria is probably a tradition around here because in large part because it's so easy, but it certainly doesn't hurt that it means amazing purple against the bright green of new tree growth just when we're most ready for lots of flowers,  after the Daffodils have stopped blooming.  Either way, I'm glad for it.

Passiflora: Passion Vines for the Season

Passion Flowers are some of my absolute favorite plants, and I thought that, it would be fitting to talk about them in honor of the early Easter.  The name for these unique flowers does not refer to romantic love, as the word "passion" is generally used in modern times.  The name for these flowers comes from the 1500's when Christian missionaries named the plant after the Passion of Christ because of its interesting Cross-shaped physical structures.  In much of the world these beautiful plants are called Clock-Flowers or Clock-Faced Flowers.

Almost all Passion Vines are tropical or nearly tropical plants.  Most cannot survive a hard freeze.  Because of this, there is a great demand for Passion Vines that thrive in containers.  When growing Passion Vine in a container, I usually recommend planting in Spring.  This give the plant time to establish itself before being cut back for winter.  Cut the vine back to about six to eight inches when bringing it inside for the cold season, and be sure to get it indoors before the first hard frost.  Keep it in a sunny window (they serve as a cheery little houseplant in the cold months) until the risk of frost is past.  A well-drained container is essential for Passion Flowers, as they can be susceptible to root-rot.

Our Passiflora 'Coral Sea' and Passiflora 'Sherry' were both chosen by Wayside Gardens not only because they are unusually beautiful Passion Flowers and bloom heavily, but also because they do exceptionally well grown in containers in Northern climates.  The brilliant deep red of the 'Sherry' can't be beat for intense color.  Grow this plant in some evening shade to allow the color to appear especially deep.  The 'Coral Sea' is an interesting pink shade that you won't often find on other flowers.  Try this one against a dark backdrop for greater contrast, to make the blooms really pop.

Two Interesting New Climbing Roses

With all the interesting new choices we're getting this year, I find that I keep coming back to flowering vines as a topic.  Between my love of flowering vines and my almost compulsive fascination with unusual blooms, I don't see how I could not write often about some of these great new flowers.

Take these two new roses, for instance.  The Rose Climbing Night Owl is an amazing rich violet, the likes of which you rarely get to see in full sun.  However, this rose has an amazing resistance to fading, so you'll get to enjoy that color even in the hottest of areas.  The deep purple will just keep on coming, too, as this heartily disease-resistant rose is a strong rebloomer that will keep your trellis or fence in those interesting flowers all summer long. 

On nearly the other end of the spectrum is the bright, fun Rose Climbing Candy Land.  While it's just as disease-resistant and profusely blooming, the Candy Land is certainly a far cry from the Night Owl in color.  These bright pink roses feature interesting white streaks that bring a double-take from anyone that sees them.  The overall effect makes the flowers look, frankly, delicious.  I can easily imagine a confectioner producing a candy that looks nearly like these blooms, though it seems unlikely that even the best candy-maker could produce anything so consistently perfect of form as this plant does.  Maybe the best thing about these new roses is how easy they are.  Rose gardening isn't just for gardeners with all the time in the world anymore, and these two incredibly easy to grow climbing roses are certainly no exception to that trend.  The only question for me this spring is which of these two will be going on my archway.

Wisteria and other Flowering Vines

Here at Wayside Gardens, we always appreciate being mentioned by newspapers.  I especially enjoyed this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, because it recommended us as a source for trumpet vines.  I'm a great lover of flowering vines, so that put a big smile on my face.  I suspect that my love for flowering vines comes from growing up looking forward each year to the Wisteria blooming all over town.  Every spring pine groves all over town explode into purple, and the purple flowers hang thick on almost every tree up and down the older streets.  They stick around for much of the summer, but here Wisteria and Daffodils mean spring has arrived, and all the flowers of the season will be following soon behind.

As I've grown older, though, I've grown to love all sorts of flowering vines.  The hummingbirds love my trumpet vine (a Campsis 'Mme. Galen') that's happily climbing a sunny wall at my mother's house, and I've been lovingly tending some pink rose vines on an arching lattice for years now.  Over the years I've had several Clematis vines (it's almost an addiction, with so much variety of both color and shape), but I think that my current favorite is my Clematis Bourbon.  My sister loves to steal my flowers and float them in a crystal bowl of water as a centerpiece.  Fortunately, it produces so many flowers throughout the summer that I don’t mind.  Even after years of propagating flowering vines, though, I still get a thrill each year when I first spot those wonderful amethyst Wisteria vines for the first time, and it's still my favorite vine by far.