Don't grow it but I would be concerned about the length of your growing season and whether the President would have time to regroup and bloom if it was frozen back to the mulch line. The only true way to know if it will work for you is to try it and see.

Hi, I look up the clematis and say's it lives from zone 4 to 11.

If you look up the growing zones for most clematis, they usually list zones 4 to 11 except for some which are definitely only hardy in the warmer zones. There has been no known definitive study done yet that substantiates which zones which clematis can successfully be grow in. Even some of the data out there says that montanas won't bloom and grow reliably in zones 6 and higher and there have been several posters here who have not only grown montanas but successfully had them flower in zone 5. That is just one example of how the information out there is wrong and/or incomplete. On top of that, not all zone 3s are alike. Microclimates, side of the house the clematis are grown on, amount of wind exposure, amount of snow cover, and a multitude of other factors come into play in any "gardening zone" to definitively say whether any plant can successfully be grown there. Take the data out there with a grain of salt and try it and let your experience tell you what you can grow.

If you want to participate in a survey that will help elucidate where different types of clematis can be grown and the problems associated with them, participate in the international survey being conducted by Clematis on the Web.

Here is a link that might be useful: COTW International Survey

Yes I agree. I grow the General and prune it like it's a group3. It blooms just fine and has come back year after year. If the President grows fast enough to set bud by the end of July I'm sure I'll get plenty of blossoms for a fall show. I have a limited amout of space so I'll need to dig up Hagley to make room. Hagely does just fine but the lower leaves turn brown late in the year? Jack, Comteese, General and Niobe do well from top to bottom with lots of late summer to fall flowers to enjoy. Thanks, Gianty.

I have a couple of group 2's (The President and Dawn) and quite a few group 3's. To minimize complication, I prune my 2's like 3's. It may delay bloom, but both The President and Dawn bloom prolifically over a long period of time.

As a side note, I have several group 1's (two Montanas and a macropetala) that I prune hard every year AFTER flowering. I do that to keep them full and smaller (I have a very small city garden) and they bloom just fine with annual hard pruning.

Good point Carrie. Even the type Is can be kept in check to a degree by pruning and doing so right after blooming is the perfect time to do it since the vines have all season to grow and produce the blooms for next spring.

I am with you. It makes life much easier to prune the type IIs as type IIIs. This year after such a horrible drought filled summer, most of my type IIs had a lot of die out so treating them like type IIIs greatly simplified the pruning job. My Sunset, which was purchased as Margot Koster, has always been pruned like a type III and she sends up tons of vines each year. This is her this season. I can't count the number of vines coming up out of the ground!

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Plus, isn't it a "rule" that newly planted Group 2's should be pruned as 3's the first couple of years. I even have a special code I use in my pruning journal -- "P3" (means 2 pruned as a 3) Sometimes mother nature forces a P3 pruning.

They always bloom in time, including The President.

Miguel, does that support get removed once the plant is further along? Or do the leaves obscure it later on?

Wendy, you are correct. All clematis benefit from being treated like type IIIs the first year or two in the ground. I think Sunset proved that to me!

No the support stays in place. It really isn't a support, but rather a rabbit fence to keep the wascally wabbits from eating the plants to the ground! On the far right is a black shepherd's hook that the plant climbs up.

Thanks everyone. I'm going to try the President, you all convinced me. Thanks.

Nothing is better than your own trials Gianty. Let us know how it turns out.

I have those wasckly wabbit guards too. They like to eat the new stems coming out of the ground. Grrrr!!