"Pam Moore" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 16:12:18 +0100, Klara wrote:

Don't you love the feel of the leaves, though?

Yes. The leaves feel like velvet, the flowers look like velvet!

However it looks as though I amdestined to have a straggly stick of a
plant for part of the year.
Thanks for the good advice.
There was a biggish one (6ft) at Heligan, in the little summer house
in the Italian garden in 2003. That was pretty straggly also.

Pam in Bristol

Pam it should start flowering in the Late Summer/Autumn, thru the winter. So
in the Spring I hard prune all mine to about 2", repot and feed as required,
then when the new growth is about 9" to 12" I cut it all off for cuttings,
leaving just one set of leaves per stem, when they recover from this they
goes out, spending the summer in a warm but not particularly sunny spot
until they come back into flower. Around mid October I bring them in still
in flower, normally all gone over by end of Jan. T. grandifolia which we
also have has a very similar timing but T. paratropica flowers from Mid
summer on and is a lot hardier and tends to be herbaceous in habit (dies
back below soil level each winter) unfortunately it is white not purple!

--
Charlie, gardening in Cornwall.
http://www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of National Plant Collection of Clematis viticella (cvs)