After your admiration for the clematis I showed on Six on Saturday, I wouldn’t want you to think that every clematis I had, and I have already told you there are many, was as floriferous. Clematis viticella ‘Venosa Violacea’ (above) on one of the rose arbour posts is doing OK though, albeit not in the same way as some others. However, as a very rough approximation perhaps at least 25 or 30% of the summer flowering varieties are not blooming or are looking unlikely to bloom this year – it could easily be more than that, but I am trying to be optimistic!
We could start with the ones I have very recently dug up and potted, to nurture them back into life; these are all ones that have failed to establish from the start and sadly some may have received the same treatment last year, burst into life in their pots and then failed to maintain that growth when replanted. There are six here, just potted up, and a further two outside that still alive but not ready to be replanted:
Some, generally reliable and floriferous and at least finally in bud, are going to be very much later to flower than usual, like ‘John Huxtable’ and ‘Gypsy Queen’ (the latter keen to get to know the calamagrostis a little better and reluctant to climb along its support):
‘Supernova’ climbs into Rosa ‘Parkdirektor Riggers’ and this year my neighbour seems to be getting the benefit of both as they branch off to pastures new:
There are those that stubbornly refuse to flower or are very reluctant to do so, especially Clematis texensis ‘Gravetye Beaty’ which produces vast amounts of foliage but barely a handful of blooms (none yet this year); its relation, C texensis ‘Duchess of Albany’ (between ‘Mme Julia Correvan’ and ‘Pernille’) has been in situ for around three
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