Good morning from the garden!

First up, thank you to everyone who came out to the Carriage House Sale.  It was a lot of fun despite the fact that it rained and the temperature dropped to the mid-50’s.  Brrrr.  I thought it was ironic that we had hot weather (mid-80’s) for our October sale last year, and cold weather for our June sale this year.  Welcome to Minnesota!

Anyway, the rain has cleared away leaving some beautiful, although probably cool by most people’s standards, weather behind.

Personally, I like a sunny day with temps in the upper 60’s and low 70’s.  They are perfect for gardening!

Today I thought I’d share a tour of my clematis.  I know I’ve shared most of them here before, but I do have a couple of new ones.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of my favorite clematis.

This one always looks amazing.  I should knock on wood because I’ve had other clematis over the years that have gone from looking fantastic year after year, to then mysteriously disappearing over the winter.  Fingers crossed that this one won’t do that.

My Roguchi clematis continues to perform its head off too.

This clematis doesn’t have the massive showy flowers that so many do, instead it has these charming violet bell shaped flowers.

But it blooms all summer long, it’s super vigorous and it’s in pruning group 3, ie. the easiest, most fail-proof pruning group.  The rabbits take care of that for me over the winter by chewing them off at about rabbit height.  All I have to do is pull the dead vines off my arbor in late winter/early spring which takes about 2 minutes.  The plant comes back from the bottom and climbs to the top of the arbor again by early June.

That’s it on the right side of the arbor above.  Last year I planted a Rebecca clematis on the left side.

It’s doing OK, but now I kinda wish I had just planted a 2nd Roguchi on the other side so that they could grow up and meet in the middle over the top of the arbor.  Hmmmm.  Maybe I need to keep an eye out for another Roguchi, huh?

I have another bell shaped clematis called Betty Corning (also a group 3 clematis).

This is its third year, or its ‘leap year’.  You know, first year they sleep, second year they creep, third year they leap.

It’s sharing a trellis with another clematis that I’ve had for years.  I’m fairly sure it’s called The President.  Back in 2024 it was absolutely stunning …

It filled out most of that trellis.

The we had what I like to refer to as the ‘bad winter’.  That was 2024/2025.  I lost a lot of plants over that winter, and this clematis barely came back last year, and isn’t looking a whole lot better this year.

Part of the problem may be that it belongs to pruning group 2, which you aren’t supposed to cut back to the ground, however the rabbits don’t seem to realize that.  I’m still hoping it will fill back out eventually.

Another clematis that is finally coming into its own this year is the Huldine that I planted on an old ladder leaning on the carriage house.

This is another one from pruning group 3, are you sensing a theme here?

It has sweet and simple white flowers that work beautifully against the red carriage house.

It is said to be a vigorous climber, growing up to 20′ tall.

This next plant isn’t a clematis, but it’s so gorgeous that I had to share it with you.

This is a Grandpa Ott morning glory, and I also planted it on the ladder together with the Huldine.

You may remember that I planted several clematis under my lilac hedge.  One of them died after the first year, but the other two are doing well.  Both have gorgeous blue/purple flowers.

The first is called H.F. Young …

and the 2nd is called Diana’s Delight.

They are still rather small plants, but I’m hoping that they eventually really take off and fill in where the lilacs look a little sparse.

I still have a few clematis that haven’t bloomed yet this year.  One is an Issey clematis that I planted at the far end of the lilac hedge earlier this spring.

Another is my Jackmanii clematis.  I think of this as the most common clematis out there, you see them everywhere.  Here is mine in bloom last year.

This one took so long to break dormancy this spring that I was sure I lost it.  As a result, I pulled out the obelisk that it was growing on.  When it did finally come up, I quickly popped in another support for it, but now I realize it’s far too small.

Oh well, hopefully I can rectify that problem next year.

How about you, do you have any clematis growing in your garden?  And do you have a favorite?  Leave a comment and let me know.