Planting small sized clematis in one gallon sized pots and growing them out until the roots of the clematis fill the pot is a great way to deal with small clematis and increase your success rate. In your colder winter climate, small clematis planted in the fall probably don't have enough time to establish themselves before the colder weather sets in due to their small root systems.

I purchased several plants from Bluestone last year during their sale. I ordered Duchess of Albany and was amazed how small she was. I grew her out and my DH pinched her back alot. When we went to put her in the ground this fall she had a great big rootball. Last week she sent up 5 or 6 healthy looking stems. She is my first success. I can't wait to see her flower. If you don't mind nursing the babies they can be good buys!

Wish me luck,
suebot in CT

Congrats Suebot!! Sounds like yours is doing really well. My Duchess of Albany was the one that kicked the bucket on me before I could even get it in the ground :( I did re-pot them in gallon pots (though admittedly not right away- they sat in their little pots for a couple of weeks) and they lived outside in a mostly shady spot where I kept all my other clems through the summer. I also pinched them back a few times over the summer, but once they were in the ground I think nckvilledudes is right that they just didn't have enough time to establish themselves before it got really cold. I also wasn't great about winter watering, which I'm sure didn't help the poor little guys.

I love my bluestone plants! all my small plants from them (including clems) are now large and gorgeous. I think you'll absolutely love your plants. and besides, they're great about replacing plants that don't do well. I love bluestone -- just love them!

My Bluestone clemmie is coming back to life too, got the multi-blue. It has one little half broken stem on it that the green is trying to grow back from. I'm wondering if I cut it off will it produce new shoots from the ground? I'm new to clematis.

Karen

I bought five clem during last year's sale (Duchess of Albany, Mme. Julia Correvon, Gravetye Beauty, Huldine and Venosa Violacea) and all are up and doing wonderfully! 3 are already in bloom (Mme. Julia, Huldine, and Venosa), and 2 are still winding their way through the trellis. I plan to buy a couple more this year.

I always had good luck with Donahue's Clematis from any sourse including Bluestone.

Here's a pic of Venosa to show how well she is doing in her first spring.

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bought 4 (duchess of albany, princess diana, huldine, ville de lyon) two years ago, nursed them in the pot the first year, put them in the ground last spring, this year they are vigorous multistemmed and reached the top of my fence (6 ft).

i think nckvilledudes has the key point. you have to nurse them in pots the first year..

the other two points i've learned from this forum (and put to good use in my garden) are to
a) plant them 4" deeper (burying some part of the stem)
b) pinch mercilessly the first / second year (after every 2 sets of leaves) to promote branching and thicker stem

I read that advice last year and did neither...both Venosa and Huldine are at 6 ft and still growing. Maybe it depends on the particular clematis you are growing. This is another picture of Venosa.

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Rosluvr, you don't have to pot up smaller clematis to get them to do well. It is just that clematis have gotten such a bum rap over the years as being difficult plants to grow, often because people purchase smaller plants that require more care, that the advice especially to novices is to grow them out to gallon sized plants before directly planting them in the ground as it increases their chance of survival. You also don't know how attentive some people will be to newly planted clematis and the smaller ones will often be the first to die if appropriate attention is not given. If you are an experienced gardener and give your plants the attention they need, then planting smaller clematis is not a problem. The first three clematis I purchased were smaller Donahue type plants, they were planted one spring which ended up being a drought ridden summer, and all three survived just fine with the attention I paid them.

Thanks for the info, nckvilledudes. These are actually my first foray into pruning class 3 clem, so I was a little worried about disregarding your info--before these, I had only grown a class 2 clem which I planted 3 years ago. But since I do have extensive gardening experience (and most of my plants manage to survive), I took a chance. There was a major drought here, too, but since they are planted directly behind my roses, which get watered every day or two during the hottest part of the summer, they all thrived. I admit that at first I was a little leery about the size of these clem when they arrived, but I am very very pleased with the results.

Roseluvr, it is true,if not cliched, that sometimes good things come in small packages! Congrats on your success and keep the pictures coming. VV is definitely a keeper in my gardens, although I do have a bias for the type IIIs in general.

Roseluvr, you are killing me! Your VV is so beautiful and HUGE :) I'm jealous! I got that one from Bluestone as well and planted it along my back fence and it never came back. I finally gave up on all of my Bluestone clems since none of them so much as sprouted out of the ground this spring :( I really want to order some Betty Corning clems this year and saw that Bluestone has some, but I'm too nervous to order the small ones again for fear of killing them again. Maybe I'd have better luck planting them right away and keeping them well watered in the ground than nursing them in pots, I don't know. Or maybe it was just our harsh winter here in the foothills that did them in. I thought my quart sized clems (from Brushwood, Chalk Hill, and Lowe's) were doing great, but compared to your VV they're nothing. My tallest (Comtesse de Bouchaud from Lowes) is probably about 4+ feet now and I was feeling all proud of it 'til I saw your blooming VV!! None of mine have buds yet. Hopefully I'll see a few blooms this year. Thanks for sharing your pics!

Almondstriations, it's early yet for buds on most clematis here in Colorado. Our growing season is rather short. There's no hint of buds on my extremely reliable Jackmanii, but it'll be covered later some time in the middle of June. It is about 7 feet tall already but it's 20 years old and will be a monster in a month. Earnest may have the tinest hint of buds, but I'm not sure. My new ones last year that overwintered in sunken gallon pots are about 4 feet high, and I'm very happy about that.
I have some buds on Cezanne, but I think that one is atypical.

BTW, I have far better luck with anything in pots if they are sunken in the ground.

I purchased Multi-Blue and Claire De Lune from Bluestone last year. I potted them in gallon pots and waited to plant in the ground early this spring. Both have already bloomed and looking very healthy. I'm also a Bluestone fan and looking forward to their sale again this year!

Bluestone's 50% sale is on now, it just started within the past few hours - but it looks like they are not including clematis this year :o(

Thanks nckvilledudes! I find I am really enjoying these class 3 clems much better than my class 2. To be able to enjoy blooms later in spring, and hopefully into the summer, is simply wonderful! Plus these clem are producing so much faster than my class 2, which took all of 3 years to finally put on a decent show.

Thanks also to you, almondstriations! I don't blame you for being reluctant to order Bluestone's clem again, since they didn't succeed in your garden. I hope your remaining clem put on a good show for you this year. :)

And thanks twixanddud for that info on this year's sale...I've been checking them daily looking for it, but I'm SO disappointed they didn't include their clematis.

Roseluvr, welcome to the wonderful world of the group III clematis! Since the type IIIs bloom on new wood, they generally start performing and producing flowers in larger quantities much sooner than the type IIs. The flowers may be smaller but they are more floriferous to make up for the smaller flowers.

Just to update my previous post, Bluestone does have some (19 or so) clematis at 50% off now - they added them to the sale items sometime since 7:00am when I last checked.

I'm new w/clematis as of last year. I got C. Purpurea Plena (2) from Bluestone, and know the pots couldn't have been very large because it's hard to dig where I put them, but I don't remember their being on sale.

I set them right in the ground early last fall, followed directions from another vendor (plant a little deeper), composted that bed and threw a bunch of leaves over everything rather than fuss with winter protecting, anyway they both are up and going well I would say considering they are young yet.

It is on the east side with my Veilchenblau, but it gets so little morning sun because of the neighbor's huge tree across the street. V. has some buds on it, so I'm hoping these will bloom, too. It's not much color contrast, but they won't bloom at the same time and I wanted to stick with a theme.

I got 2 Rooguchi from Klehm's last year and they are going like crazy, bloomed nonstop all last summer and already are about 6-7', also got 2 Correzon from another vendor, but one isn't doing too well, it's in a trouble spot for a lot of things.

Just planted Polish Spirit today and forgot to set it deeper but covered with thick layer of mulch and then pulled it away from the base a bit. Had a hard time finding that one, ended up getting one from Hirt's through amazon.

I also got 2 kinds of tulip bulbs and Becky Shasta (3) last fall from BS, some little crocus, daffs, all were great; only one Becky isn't too vigourous, the others came back this spring and are a lot bigger.

I'm trying to grow Clematis in combo w/roses. Time will tell.

I'm dazzled with some of the photos posted.

I'm growing my clemmies with roses and I'm not sure I'm going to like the combo in the end. They are doing well, what with sharing the fertilizer and watering that comes from being so close to the roses, but once my baby roses get large, I'm not sure I'll be able to maintain the clemmies properly...like you said, time will tell. ;)

I was thrilled Bluestone added clems to the half off sale..then I saw Betty Corning wasn't on the list... :(

roseluvr, I'm still a little leery about growing roses and clems together, too, may end up with a tangled mess, and I have a huge double trellis I need to set up when I can get to it.

So worse case scenario, if everything is healthy, I'll just cut it further back in the spring. Or start over. Nothing ever goes for me as planned.

People around here grow the more common types as single specimens, and I doubt some get any pruning or any extra attention, but some of these more unusual ones may need more TLC.