Most of my gardening is based on failures, trial and error and learning the hard, wallet and back breaking way. Most of my failures can be classified into 3 classes:

. Planting too large a plant into too small a space

. Planting plants not tolerant of my high pH soil. You can't imagine how many plants like these exist..

. Not having soil in the first place or trying to plant where the stone worker had dumped all the stone debris many years ago..

When I first moved in here 25 years ago I knew nothing about anything. I bought one of those "instant garden" group of plants from a catalog - it looked so nice in the picture! I ran around one area and planted all of the plants (can't remember, but I am sure I did not do it correctly). Anyway, within about 12 months they had ALL disappeared. Remarkably, about 6 years ago I noticed a large day lily starting to bloom which I had no idea where it came from. I was VERY puzzled. I finally decided it must have been one of the plants I had planted years ago, and had been somehow waiting its chance to grow! It blooms every year now - I think plants are amazing.

Jackie

Melissa, just to say, I wonder if the early Clematis you are referring to is Clematis armandii of which the usual variety is 'Apple Blossom', or it could be Clematis cartmanii 'Early Sensation'... both are popular over here..and both evergreen...

Melissa, other than the ones Marlorena mentioned, the two early clematis that came to mind are Clematis cirrhosa and C. alpina. C.cirrhosa is much the more rambunctious one of the two.

John

I suppose the epic fail is my garden since the drought, but that's being a bit dramatic. MY epic fail has been to discard roses too easily rather than trying to plant them in a different spot where they might have thrived or, in two particularly numbskull instances, yanking out Hoag House Cream and Cl. Lady Hillingdon for no particularly good reason that I can fathom now. It still hurts whenever I allow myself to think about it. My other epic failures are not enriching the soil before putting in a single plant and installing a drip system at that time. It was all done piecemeal and without much planning, and at that time I really had no clue how awful the soil and radiant heat were up here. I suppose, given all that, my epic success is that I have a garden at all!

The hosta, and eastern US shade garden plants and bulbs I planted from mail order under my pines when I was just getting started. Massive disappointment in my early 20s. Then I discovered the Sunset Western Garden book.

It's all about the learning curve, I see. I made Ingrid's mistake of not understanding how much amendment the soil in my garden needed, producing possibly the most epic of all my failures. If Ingrid and I averaged our two soils we might do nicely, but that's not how gardens work. I've also made Molly's mistake of not thinking of flowering times when I planted flowers for combined effect. Nik's conditions are hard, and the only good thing I can say about them is that his garden is going to be distinctive because he's forced to choose plants that will grow there, and they'll have a particular character. We have a few areas where our predecessors piled rocks. DH didn't like the idea of them as refuges for snakes and had a couple of loads of topsoil dumped over them. Since then they've been valued parts of the garden, since they're the only zones we have which are actually free draining.

Marlorena and John, thanks for the suggestions. I looked into 'Apple Blossom', as being the most likely, but the clematis I was was white, early, large, and looked like a C. montana type. So the obvious occurred to me,and I searched for a white Clematis montana, and found one. I think that's the plant I saw. I may be looking for potential planting sites in my wood for clematis and a white Lady Banks, though this last will have to be propagated starting next fall. I don't usually take cuttings of my monstrous climbers, as I don't know where I might put them.