A friend got me hooked on clematis a few years ago and I've been experimenting a lot in mixing up colors, types, and companions. A lot were planted in summer 2010 and have a ways to go to bulk up, but some are surprisingly vigorous already. And the Henryi I planted about 4 years ago to grow into the Chinese wisteria is finally starting to make its presence felt (it's hard to get good pictures of it though because of its location.)

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(There are a lot more flowers than just those you can see in that picture - there are a lot on the very top of the wisteria 'tree' and a lot near the base of the clematis on the west side - this picture is the south side of the tree.)

The clematises on the iron obelisk we added to the front garden in 2010 are starting to grow nicely now. Some pictures:

Viewed through the iron arbour:

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With a copper and wood tripod in the background:

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A closer view of the clematises blooming on the obelisk today:

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We removed Nen Dawn roses from the south gate arbour and swag in 2010 and replaced them with clematises (no thorns!!) The clematises on the arbour are doing very well; the ones being trained onto the swag chains have been slower to take off so I didn't take pictures of those.

Looking at the south gate and arbour from a stepladder!:

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Closer view of the top:

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The inside view of the arbour and gate:

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I'm always looking for places to add more of these beauties...!