365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Clematis "Vancouver Sea Breeze"
Day 208: Little by little, I am managing to convert my garden from pink to blue. The pink bits came with the house, and at the time, I wasn't going to quibble. As it was, a friend helped me excavate two overgrown, weedy flower beds to a depth of 18", the two of us sifting the soil through our fingers to remove any undesirable roots and making a stack of others to replant. Oh, there were a few lovelies in the lot: tall delphiniums, showy peonies and such, but the majority of our salvage consisted of columbines in a variety of shades of pink. With the exception of invasives, I do not have it in me to hate a flower, so as I added plants in shades of blue and purple, I removed the pinky ones to locations where I'll see them less often.
Among the ones I added, a deep-hued Clematis was one of my favourites. It climbed a trellis, marched across the awning over the back step, tangled itself in power lines and became lovingly known as the "Purple Wall." After a decade or so, it diminished in vigour, and whether the problem was that of its inherent life expectancy or some lack of care on my part, I did not know. I tried transplanting it, and eventually, it died. As much as I had loved its church-purple blooms, I decided it was time for something different and planted "Vancouver Sea Breeze" in a new location. This morning, I was greeted with three open flowers, the first of the season, and at least a dozen more are in various stages of development.
Labels:
Clematis Vancouver Sea Breeze,
gardening
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