How large is very large, both depth and width? I wouldn’t plant it to share a pot with a canna.

Is there a sheltered spot where the pot can over-winter such as against the house surrounded by bags of leaves? Or perhaps in a cool but not quite as cold as outdoors garage or shed? If you get an extremely cold spell, you don’t want the pot to freeze solid.

Rouge Cardinal is a good sized plant, over 10’, so it will likely climb a support and then spill back down. If that look is fine for you, then give it a try. Otherwise, there are a number of clematis that are shorter.

Hi NHBabs, thank you for responding.

The pot is about 2 ft wide and 3 ft tall. I wanted the RC to climb up a column I have on my front porch so the pot would stay there on the porch through the winter. It will be too heavy to move.

I see your point about freezing and cold and lack of shelter. I’ll have to rethink this idea.

Does Rouge Cardinal need to be cut back? My only clematis is a Nelly Moser, which I have not cut back, and it’s doing so well this third year that I bought the Rouge Cardinal and a Louise Rowe. Very excited about these new purchases but need to find the right spots. Permanent spots - I’ve read that they don’t like being moved.

Thanks again!

I grow all different kinds of clematis in containers.......I think I have 6-8 of them growing in pots more or less permanently and few more in pots waiting to get planted....somewhere :-) So they do very well in containers providing you allow a big enough pot for the roots to expand properly (yours sounds about ideally sized). Winter protection may be your biggest concern, but bubble wrap can help! And if you put the container on casters or a plant mover, you could wheel it into a protected area.

Rouge Cardinal is a type 3 - hard prune. So you cut back to the second set of leaf axils in late fall/early winter or in late winter/early spring. And I have moved clems many times.....they are vey adaptable and don't mind at all. It just gets harder to do the older they get as that root system can be very large and cumbersome.

As GG48 said, that sounds like a great sized pot. And having a hard prune clematis like Rouge Cardinal is ideal in a spot like yours since if you cut it back in early winter, you don’t have to look at dead vines all winter. If you can put it in the ground or don’t mind looking at bubble wrap all winter (perhaps you can find a seasonally decorated outer cover to go over it?) it sounds like a great plant for you there. You should be aware that it won’t climb a pillar without help since they climb by wrapping leaf stems (petioles) around something narrow such as wires, netting, or narrow rods. Wires from the ground to good sized screw eyes in the soffit are one way to add a light weight trellis.

Louise Rowe and Nelly Moser are both earlier bloomers that set buds the previous season for early spring bloom You don’t have to prune other than to remove damage, but if you do a light prune right after bloom, it encourages a second flush of bloom in the late summer or fall. The second bloom for doubles like Louise Rowe is typically single. In my area, the vines are often killed back to the snow line by winter cold, so they get hard pruned many years and will bloom well regardless, though delayed by a week or two. My season is too short for much late summer bloom.