About 4 or 5 years ago we made a half hearted attempt at doing the garden.
This included planting 3 clematis along our back fence. In my stupidity I
used those plastic expanding trelises to fix it to the fence. Of course the
first strong winds of the winter blew it off and broke the plants which
weren't doing particularly well anyway.

The garden got abandoned until last year when got it all cleared out to give
us a blank slate to work from. I feel guilty we didn't manage to do it all
ourselves, but it was the best money we've ever spent! This clear out
included the bed where the clematis were as the plants were in a very sorry
state and the bed was full of weeds.

Earlier this year I noticed one of the clematis had survived - it's now got
4 strong, healthy shoots and is at the top of a 6 feet fence covered with
buds. When I'd spotted it I'd been careful to avoid it when preparing the
bed for spring.

The rest of the fence has been planted up with young climbers, with annual
sweet peas filling the gaps in between for this year as the perennials are
still establishing themselves.

I've just been out to 'tidy up' the sweet peas when I discovered the other 2
clematis are both about a foot high and growing right at 2 clumps of sweet
peas! They survived a full clear out, me hand clearing the bed this spring
(I'm now glad I was lazy and didn't remove the winter pansies and dig the
bed over), planting sweet peas on top of them, and several weeks of hoeing!

Sorry for the ramble but I'm absolutely thrilled - there are only 2
problems.

I have no idea what varieties any of the three are (once they flower wait
for the ID post g)

Whether I should remove the sweet peas from those areas to let the clematis
breath, or just let them both fight it out till autumn when the sweet pease
will die back

--
WRabbit
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"WRabbit" wrote in message
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SNIP

I have no idea what varieties any of the three are (once they flower wait
for the ID post g)

Looking forward to it.

Whether I should remove the sweet peas from those areas to let the
clematis
breath, or just let them both fight it out till autumn when the sweet
pease
will die back

Leave them be. Clematis are famous for wanting their "feet in the shade, and
heads in the sun"

Steve