I had visions of a beautiful clematis wrapping around my porch, gently draping here and there. But I was unprepared for the result...
I originally purchased a little foot high seedling of the Bill MacKenzie clematis from Lazy S's Farm Nursery online. Fabulous online nursery, by the way. Here it is beginning to grow on the trellis next to the porch steps:
And here it is now, taking over the porch:
Note to self: pay more attention to labeled height on plants.. and maybe measure..
Now it would be different it this monster was covered in spectacular blooms. However, last year it did not bloom at all, and this year it has given me all of three tiny yellow parachute-belled blooms so far. I suspect I gave it fertilizer with too much nitrogen in it last year, which caused the amazing foliage display. This is a type 3 clematis, so I cut it down to about 3 feet tall in early spring. I think this fall I might move it to a more appropriate location. I hold out hope that one year it will be covered in delicate yellow bells to go with all those beautiful delicately-cut leaves.
At least this is one monster the wildlife don't seem to be afraid of, as evidenced by this little lizard and the giant imperial moth:
