We need photos to help you out.

I have some pictures now on my camera, and my husband says he will load them onto the computer tomorrow and then needs to figure out how to put them on this site. My computer skills are quite limited.

Anne

Photos seem to load more easily in comments so just add as a comment in this thread. He willwatto use ca icon below the comment box, and once the fogged photo appears, he will have to wait for it to show full colors before hitting submit.

Thank you for the info, NHBabs. We thought he loaded the pictures correctly about 15 minutes after your post, but they haven't shown up. I'm not sure if he waited long enough for the fogged photos to get to the point they needed to before hitting submit, so if they don't show up pretty soon, we'll have to try again later.

Anne

5 smaller petals over 5 larger petals

4 over 4

4 over 4

single with 5 petals

The color is not blue, it's a deeper richer purple than the pictures show.

The flowers are droopy, but I want to use this as a ground cover over a 15" wall. Not sure whether to plant it below the wall to lean in to and climb up over the top of the wall and spread over the Blue Chip ground-hugging junipers, or if I should plant it between the junipers to spread above the wall over the junipers and then fall over the south-facing wall.

The junipers are newly planted, ultimately will spread to over 8' wide or greater, and root as they go. It will be drier planted about 15" in from the inside edge of the rock wall, than below the wall.

So, moisture vs sun pulling the plant south over the wall (although this will not be 100% sunny due to peonies and a tanyosho pine that will get higher) and east (morning sun) vs ultimate root competition with the juniper.

Anne

Very pretty! I have Happy Jack, and the flower structure doesn't look much like that. But as you noted, clem flowers can do weird things sometimes, especially in the spring! Maybe overfertilization pushed it into making double flowers? Who knows!

My Happy Jack does have some lightness in the center of the "petals" (in clematis, those are actually sepals you're looking at!), but it is almost exclusively four-petaled. It's a very dark purple.

Wait and see how yours blooms later in the season. If it reverts to single flowers, I'd chalk it up to clematis weirdness!

My Happy Jack a couple of weeks ago --

amazindirt, very pretty--thank you for the picture! It helps, because one of the reasons I wanted my "special" Happy Jack in this location is that it is unusual. If it's not, I'd rather put something else there, although I love the deep purple color.

It's almost the first thing you see when you come into my driveway, will have a couple of pink floribunda roses near it and at the moment I'm planning to put Vivienne Beth Currie on the other side. I cannot find much info about VBC and it's the smallest of the clems I got from Donahue's this year, so I don't know what it looks like in reality, since it has a ways to go before I see a flower--assuming the chipmunks, rabbits, or moles don't get it first. Right now I have VBC temporarily planted elsewhere until I can see its flowers due to the horsetail problem where I want to plant it.

I feel for your horsetail struggles!

I've never seen VBC in person, but the photos I just Googled look very nice. I always get so frustrated looking at clem photos, though, because the colors just never show up right! Sigh.

Good luck with whatever you decide on!

Nice plant! It will be interesting to see if the flowers are similar next year. If it were mine I would plant it at the base of the wall and give it wire fencing or netting or a flat trellis that will let it climb since they grow up or across better than down. Whatever you choose, it should have a diameter of pencil thickness or less since clematis climb by wrapping their leaf stems (petioles) around the support.

Amazindirt, your Happy Jack flowers look so perky, unlike mine.

I've ordered lots of clems from the pictures and then hoped for the best. Haven't been disappointed yet, but I had lots of places to put them, so if a color didn't work out as expected, I just moved the clem to a different location.

NHBabs, thanks for reinforcing the idea that it should be planted below the wall, which I think means that I need to choose a different clematis. More blooms have appeared and they all are large and floppy. I think my best bet is to plant this elsewhere so I can see how it develops. I had thought that the floppiness might make it a good ground cover, but the size of the blooms make it unlikely that it will go tripping lightly across the Blue Chip junipers. There is one non-horsetail spot I think might work for HJ.

I want a purplish type 3 for this location so there will be some color here during the summer after the peonies finish blooming. I just planted Star of India (which I haven't seen bloom yet) and Princess Kate by a bluish 3' wide boulder that's built into this new wall along the front, so I may move Star of India to the original "Happy Jack" spot once everything has bloomed and I have a better idea of how everything would look at various times.

I really wanted Julka (and still do, if I could find it) for this location and had ordered some other clems from Donahue's, Joy Creek and Silver Star Vinery, which have always provided excellent service and plants, but could only find Julka at Spring Hill. So in spite of the terrible reviews over the years for the latter, I placed an order for it and a couple of other clems.

Big mistake! Over a period of about 7 weeks, SH kept changing the delivery date that THEY had set 3 times. I had to call each time to see why I hadn't gotten them, (when I'd already received all of the clems from the other 3 places which I'd ordered after the Spring Hill order) --no contact from SH or explanation any of these times, so I finally cancelled the order and received a refund just before the date that we would have had to call our credit card company to have them not pay Spring Hill.

Many thanks to both of you for taking the time to help me decide what to do here.

Anne