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GARDEN PATH
True or false? Not all clematises are vines.
It's true. While clematises are by far the most
popular and showiest perennial vines we grow in the Twin Cities, the genus
includes some species that don't climb.
They're called bush clematises, although they're
really not bushes, either. They're bushy, multi-stemmed herbacious
plants that need the support of a hoop to stand upright.
I have two of these beauties in my garden, both gifts
from a friend who divided her plants. Clematis integrifolia
blooms with a profusion of little nodding blue bells on a 2½-foot plant. Clematis
recta, which grows to about 5 feet, produces clouds of small, starry
white fragrant flowers with a vanilla scent. Both are blooming now and will
continue well into the month. A third species available to gardeners is Clematis
heracleifolia, a 2-foot mounding subshrub with blue or purple nodding bells.
Although plant breeders have been producing new
varieties of vining clematises with large flowers
since the 1930s, bush clematises are just beginning to catch their
attention.
Here in the Twin Cities, Dr. Harold Pellett started crossing species of bush clematises in
2000 with the goal of producing plants with larger, upward-facing flowers.
His breeding work has been supported with grants from the St. Paul Garden Club and Perennial Plant
Association.
"When we collected Clematis hexapetala seeds in Russia in 1998," he says,
"it gave me the idea to develop clematis that could be used in the
garden without a trellis." C. hexapetala
has white, upward-facing 1½-inch flowers.
Pellett, retired head of
the woody plant-breeding program at the University
of Minnesota, now directs the Landscape Plant Development
Center in Chanhassen.
The nonprofit center is attempting to develop superior landscape plants in
cooperation with plant researchers at many universities and botanical
gardens.
Last week, Pellett showed
his new bush clematis hybrids to some gardeners at his farm in Minnetrista. Star of the show is a beauty with
upward-facing 1½- to 2-inch flowers with white centers and petals blending
purple and clear blue. It grows about 2 feet tall.
"This is the one we're going to introduce," Pellett says. "It's a cross between C. integrifolia and C. hexapetala.
It has very dark green foliage that keeps really clean all summer. It will
bloom pretty strongly for three to four weeks, and you might have a
scattering of flowers late season."
Donahue's Greenhouse in Faribault, which specializes in
clematises, already has the as-yet-unnamed plant in production. But it's
likely to take two years before enough plants are available to begin
selling them to the public, according to Kathy Donahue.
You can order bush
clematises, including C. integrifolia and C.
recta, from Donahue's by phone at 507-334-8408 or via the Internet at www.donahuesclematis.com.
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