Hard conditions for this pecan. Might be why it aborted so many nuts. No meat in these driveway nuts.
Yesterday my Sweet Autumn Clematis started opening up. Bees were all over it and the pincusion flower. First photo is from the west side and shows the clematis on the 5' pillar (left side mound), over a shorter azalea (right side, shorter mound) and climbing one of the Rose of Sharons (right, taller mound). From the south side One of the numerous bees hard at work
I had one of those fall blooming clematis. I ripped it out after a couple of years as it was swallowing everything around it. Nice looking plant if it wasn't so aggressive.
I had one at my old house so I knew what I was getting into. I planted that clematis when the huge willow was there. The stump from the willow is just behind the pillared section in that first picture - to the right of the yellow leaves from the hosta (it and other plants got burned by the heat wave last week after being used to the cooler temps). The clematis would have been a spectacular sight climbing the willow, but I have to make do with pillars and shorter plants supporting it. That is one of the reasons that garden is so sparse of plants, to give it room to spread out. The clematis holds back most of its growth until after the lilies and peonies have put on their show and then fills in that area. I did mess up by putting some turtle heads too close (just to the right of the RoS in the second picture), so they get covered before they bloom, but that is on me. I just cut it down to the ground once it has died back for the season. Otherwise the winds of winter catch the mass of stems on the wrought iron pillar and push the whole structure over.
I’ve planted 2 climatis and nether one grows well. They might be 2’ tall in growth and struggle to bloom. One gets full morning sun, the other gets about 50/50 shade/sun. I’d love to have them but can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.
regular clematis are a bit harder to grow than the sweet autumn cleamtis (which is a Japanese plant). I have a couple of regular clematis (I can't find records of what they are named) on the other side of the yard that are ins 50/50 shade (or maybe more). One of the plants actually flowers towards the north because it gets more light bouncing off the apartment buildings 150' away than it does on the south side. Anyway, they have done well without any fuss. I think it is because they are in a moist area right next to the drainage area (that drainage area is not a "ditch" but a wide and shallow depression) - they are thirsty plants. The ones I have don't get very tall, nor are they supposed to.
We had a drought last year which resulted in no winter berries. This year, we're >10 inches of rain above average. Winter berries like the rain.
Winter berries are in the Holly family. Critters can eat them. Poisonous to humans. The berries stay around and contrast nicely against snow. The plant itself loses its leaves.
