My new 6 Clematis from Bluestone are doing great as usual. Very healthy looking babies. Also, I've never got a mislabeled Clematis from Donahue's.
Do not cut them back too much, but pinching new growth will help forming a bushy plant. Do not worry, you will see a bloom or two later this year :-)

I lost 2 of the 3 from the 07 BS sale in the Summer, but Princess Diana is coming along almost as good as the Donahues I got from Koi in August & September, even though the BS roots were smaller.

I got 2 clems & 2 other vines in the 08 sale. 3 of the 4 pots were still retaining moisture, but Killian Donahue was bone dry, with dried brown foliage halfway up. I soaked in a bucket of water for several hours before repotting in a gallon pot and the top growth seems to have recovered.

I have been searching the Walmart, Lowes & HD store in Augusta & Auburn ME looking for the small pots of Roseville clems for months. In April, a fairly knowledgeable Lowes employee said that the shipment came in such bad shape they sent them back. He didn't say if they were reordered or when replacements were due, but I checked every couple of weeks in Augusta, where I work, less frequently at Auburn.

But today I finally found them at Lowes & W in Auburn. I had all of Lowes varieties, and also W's, but I thought that the Miss Bateman, also from Roseville in 06, which bloomed for the first time on 6/3/08, was mislabeled, possibly Snow Queen. It opened pink, like SQ does for me. So I picked out the best Miss B. All looked good at both places, so I am assuming that they had just recently arrived.

In the morning, before I left on my shopping spree (when it is the first day in the nineties, & it was too hot to even make the walk-around, a ride in an air-conditioned car was a better alternative, except when I had to get out before getting into the A-Ced stores) I didn't even look at anything on the East side. But I did get back a few hours before dark, and after doing some other things I did walk back there. The 2 flowers had turned white & the centers more brown than the early magenta, so maybe it really is Miss B. But it was too late to take a picture.Well, having a spare white type 2 really isn't a problem.

I prefer getting larger plants, but the little ones are fun to grow up, and if they don't make it there is not such a great monetary loss.
Now that I have a fair amount of more mature plants to flower for me, I don't mind the wait for the babies as much.

Marie