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.