The Compost Bin

After years and years of nothing happening with my Climbing Hydrangea, I decided to go with something a little more reliable in the flowering vines department.

You see, I had such high hopes for the climbing hydrangea that despite my wife's suggestion to get a few of them, I told her boldly, "We'll only need one honey. This entire arbor will be covered with flowering vines in a few years and we'll have to trim them to keep them in check."

Well 5 years later and I have a 6 foot vine that hasn't flowered yet. And even though it's a nice looking green plant, it still looks kind of funny growing up one side of my arbor.

Not being a gardener to shy away from failures, I decided it was time to try a different vine and picked up a nice looking clematis on one of my many trips to the nursery. And I'm glad I did.

This Clematis is in it's second year and it's doing great with little or no maintenance. I planted it in rich soil that I amended with compost and occasionally feed it with either fish tank water or some Sea Magic Plant Fertilizer. I just kept it watered and bought a nice trellis that I figured it wouldn't need for a few years and that was it.

I was wrong about that because it grew right up the trellis about three or four feet high within a month or two. Then the flowers came and I became really happy with the purchase. What a great vine!

When spring came around this year, I tried to do some research to see if this was the clematis that likes to be cut down to the ground each season or if I should just leave it be. But that research, like many other things that I could only accomplish if I was independently wealthy and didn't need a 9-5 job, was put on the back burner. But thankfully, the vine starting growing and budding without any help from me. And now look at it.

Easy to grow, great looking flowers, fills in a trellis pretty quickly, a clematis is a great plant. This year I bought four new ones in hopes of growing them up my chain link fence. And just like I told my wife, the entire chain link fence will be covered with flowering vines in a few years and we'll have to trim them to keep them in check.