Wow, these roots are huge! The Chalk Hill Clematis have smaller rootballs despite coming in much larger pots. Donahue's babies from different sources always performed well for me. So far, I have not received mislabeled ones, but I did not order directly from the Donahue's nursery.
Congratulations Miguel! I hope these will be true to name.

I have not gotten any mishaps from them and always was happy with roots- those plants will have enough energy to grow very well. I do usually pot them up and keep for the season before planting in the ground.
Nice that they accepted responsibility and corrected their mistake. Love that Minuet flower.

Alina, time will tell if they are true to name but at least I am very pleased that Donahues followed through on their promise to replace the ones I received last fall that were definitely not what they were supposed to be. Very rare in these times to have someone remember that they promised to do something 5 months ago and actually do it!

Linda, I decided to plant these directly in the ground since the roots were nice and in the case of Carmencita, it actually looked like I had three plants in one pot. This time of the year is the best time for planting clematis for me since the weather has cooled significantly (we are getting down into the 40s this week for overnight lows) and we are getting plenty of rain. If it were spring, I would definitely have potted them up and grown them out for the season since spring turns to summer here in the drop of a hat.

Nice looking plants, Miguel. I am impressed with their customer service!

Carol

I agree those look like "Minute" and "BC"..glad to know they do replace mislabled clematis.I've order from them before and was fortunate to get what I asked for.Thanks Miquel for sharing your experience with us...Jeanne

It is great that responsible sellers still exist.
I also got Royal Velours this fall (from Garden Crossings). Seems to be a beauty. Hope it will be true to name :o)

Those are much more impressive than what I received from Chalk Hill.

Since I am in WI, a good 80% of clems I find around here are Donahue's. The root systems have always been outstanding. Very grateful to have them nearby.

L-

I almost posted the exact same thing last night. Donahue's is a great vendor. A warning though: I know a nursery that will pot up Donahue's clematis in larger pots, stick the Donahue's label onto the pot, and charge a lot more for the clematis.

Whenever I order plants on-line, I charge them to my VISA. They are fairly easy to deal with when it comes to disputes even months after the fact.

On one clematis order, 4 of 6 plants were mislabeled but I didn't know that until they bloomed many months later. Vendor site closed but VISA intervened and issued me full credit. And they also handled a $400 car repair that didn't - after we couldn't get anywhere with the auto manager.

Hope this helps someone sometime. File your paperwork, protect your $$.

I have seen the same thing Janet. I don't mind paying a nursery that does this and charges more for the plant IF they are the ones that grow the smaller plant out so that the plant they are selling has roots that fill the entire larger pot. Paying them to grow them into one gallon sized pots only seems fair to me since they do have to care for it while it is growing up.

I once bought a clematis locally that they had taken liner sized plants, potted them up, and then sold them before the plant had grown out hardly at all into the surrounding potting medium. I found this out when I tried removing the plant from the pot and the unattached soil fell away revealing the smaller plant inside the soil. Needless to say I took the plant back and got a refund for it.

Good point Mary Ann. I would think that most online or mailorder vendors would require payment either by credit card or some electronic payment option such as Paypal when you place an order. I know of very few that would take cash. I have successfully used my Amex card to get resolution in a similar issue and I am sure Mastercard works the same way. Not sure what would happen if Paypal was used and the issue was noted many months after the fact.

Lucky you Miguel. You didn't do too bad with the mislabelled ones either. Now that's customer service.

Miguel, what do you think the pale blue one is in the first pic?
It looks a lot like my Blue Angel in colour.
At least you got some nice mislabelled ones.

I thought so as well Joan.

Helen, I am not sure what the pale blue one is. They suggested Betty Corning but I don't think that is it since the blooms on my BC are nothing like that and the foliage of an emerging BC plant is very distinctive and the foliage that came up this spring didn't look like that. I hope it isn't Blekitny Aniol as I already have two of them--one of them was supposed to be Little Nell. ARGG. I hope I don't end up with three Blekitny Aniol because at least one of them is going to have to be evicted from the garden. I am running out of space to have too many of that one plant! LOL

That is what I meant Miguel. The nursery I mentioned doesn't grow them out before charging more money, and most people don't know their getting ripped off.