I have grown Niobe for years and it fits your height requirement. It starts out a rich deep reddish black and fades to a deep wine red. I wish I had better pics.

Definitely a good suggestion @peren.all Zone 5a Ontario Canada. Thanks for digging out the photos.

Hi @rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a): Wildwood Express has Westerplatte in their catalog: https://wildwood.express/collections/clematis/products/clematis-westerplatte

I had (still have when it chooses to appear…!) what was sold to me as Niobe but what a clematis person on here years ago said was Westerplatte. Whatever it is, the colour is great but it does suffer from Clematis wilt. :-(

Um, I had a Rouge Cardinal on an obelisk for quite a long time. I rather liked the backswept flowers and it had a very mannerly growth habit...as well as being in the handy and easy pruning group 3 -flowering on new growth so amenable to (my) untender chopping habits.

Hey @mazerolm_3a, funny you mention "Wildwood Express" as I just came across them this morning...a CDN site that ships. Have you bought from there?

In my very personal opinion, I consider C. texensis 'Gravetye Beauty' to be the best red flowered clem. But it has small tulip shaped flowers that are not everyone's clematis cup of tea, although it produces them in profusion and over a long period in mid to late summer. I am also partial to Rouge Cardinal as well. Both are pruning group 3 clems and very not inclined to wilt ;-)

I tend to be very much less drawn to the early large flowered hybrids (pruning group 2) as they are more wilt prone and IME, much slower to establish than less hybridized forms.

@rouge21_gw (CDN Z5b/6a): no I have not ordered from Wildwood. Maybe next year! :)

Ah ha, I had forgotten all about 'Gravetye Beauty'. I agree that it is a beautiful clematis. I didn't consider it in part because I had planted it years back, in my clematis obsessed days and it did not survive :(. Now that I am a seasoned gardener ;) I may give it another go. (But now that I think of it Iit might be problematic these days sourcing 'GB' locally).

(@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) I mention "large flowered" because I was impressed with clematis 'Rebecca' when it was in our garden; albeit for too short a time :(. )

My 'Gravetye Beauty' does well, though only in the ground 3 years. I'm looking forward to the performance this year, because last year, it flushed in May or early June and there were no late season flowers. While in my climate, that may be ideal for the plant, I really wanted late season flowers ;) Maybe it was just an odd year.

Thanks for that dbarron.

I would rather the flowers occur later in the summer as May and June are 'taken care of' at our place in terms of flowers.

Just curious...how tall is your 3 year old GB? And how is it supported?

Well, last years growth ran up a tree trunk...and (guestimation) reached 6 foot (with some twining, so probably longer). It's 1/2 texensis which is a scrambler in low bushes, so that's what I gave it (more or less).

Yeah, that's what disappointed me last year, the really early bloom. The year before (first year in ground) it had flowered in mid to late summer (as expected). It hasn't shown its head yet this year, but I expect to see growth any day (I'm looking).

Wildwood Express seems to only ship within Canada. Has anyone in the US ordered from them? They have a nice selection and good prices.

Niobe was prolific here last year and bloomed a long time, then repeated a bit in fall. I'm growing it in a pot. It survived temps down to 4 degrees during the winter. I have Rebecca but it only produced a few blooms last year and was not as red as expected. Avant Garde is reddish...a little more purplish than expected. It seems very vigorous. Mme. Julia Correvon is reddish and has great vigor and blooms a long time.

Mme Julia

Niobe in a pot

Mme. Julia Correvon is reddish and has great vigor and blooms a long time.

I so agree @erasmus_gw....an excellent clematis. We have had "Julia" for several years, climbing up a wall and cedar hedge. (But I believe it is much too vigorous for a 6 ft obelisk.)

Here is ours from last summer.

Ah, I have a complicated relationship with texensis clems ...mainly the frequently dismal foliage which does detract from the flowers. The annoying persistence of frazzled leafage is also an irritating feature of clematis cirrhosa too. I used to grow viticella plena elegans, which also required manicuring, and despaired of clematis of any stripe in my teeny garden although Rooiguchi and a somewhat pallid Prince Charles did buck the trend. I tend to grow rampageous rambler companions (flammula, fargesii, terniflora) or herbaceous types at the allotment, but fear the whole clematis/rose show has got away from me a bit.

Very beautiful, Rouge. Mine is not very old. This is its third year I think. Another reddish one I have bought this year is Cardinal Wyszynski. It sounds good.

I have not been growing them long enough to have problems with them getting too big. I have a 6' obelisk for Polish Spirit but it is beside a pear tree so I hope it can go up in that if it outgrows the obelisk. Have another Polish Spirit supported by three bamboo poles but above that it has a thin poled arch to climb on. If they get big enough for those I'll be happy. Some people let them drape back down I think.

I have not been bothered with ugly leaves that much. I wonder why. My texensis, Princess Diana, got a few yellowish leaves in fall but not really bothersome. Sounds like the eastern part of England gets pretty dry. We get dry here ( NC, US) for long spells sometimes.

asking for red clems.. is like asking peeps to post pix of blue plants ...

i have NEVER seen what i would call a red clem.. not that i spend any time stalking around town looking for them ...

too many peeps when asked to post pix of blue plants.. will admit.. half of them are actually purple... its all about how everyone.. individually 'sees' color ...

and im not willing to call maroon or browinsh purple... mauve if you will.. a red flower ...

i wonder how many of us.. way back when.. when we actually had garden mags.. and catalogs.. ordered the blue rose.. lol .. photoshop color before there was photoshop.. lol ... or the silver one... it wasnt blue.. and it wasnt silver .... and i was a rube.. lol ..

ken

who would name there kid rube?? .. well i suppose missus goldberg... eh?? .. oh its short for rueben.. of which im going to cook my corned beef soon.. but i digress ...

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=rube&ia=definition

of course.. we all know him as the inspiration for the mousetrap game... or any type of complicated machine to do easy tasks...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rube+goldberg+machine+ideas&t=ffab&iax=videos&ia=videos

what was the topic.. lol ...

Reddish clems are ok with me.

AreN'T you going to wait for St. Patrick's day to cook your corned beef? I might get some. If I leave out the potatoes it's low carb. I like it cooked with onion, carrots, cabbage and potatoes.

asking for red clems.. is like asking peeps to post pix of blue plants

Well then you are pickier than me ken. Several suggestions posted here would be just fine.

The Rebecca I had a few years ago was red enough for me:

See here for "red" Rebecca:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/3921669/tell-me-about-your-rebecca

LOL!! A great many of ken's posts make very little sense and are more personal garden musings than statements of fact :-)

I agree that 'Rebecca' is very red - probably the reddest of any clematis flower. But as noted here, perhaps not the best 'doer'. I find almost any of the type 2's fussy to establish and more prone to wilt and random dieback of any clematis type. But it is most definitely RED!!

Grief yes...type 2 clems are a wild fantasy for me, Erasmus. I struggle with most of the ranunculus family tbf - altogether too dry - but have had the best luck with atragenes, which actually seem perfectly cheery in fairly rubbish soil. More limited colours though.

Worth not ducking the issue of fading. I don't mind a bit of a pastel fade out but generally like my reds and oranges to avoid fading to murkier shades.

Spelt Reuben (my sweetheart's name...although often misspelled).

I enjoy Ken's rambling posts.

In addition to what's been mentioned. I've grown a couple of ernest markham. They looked very red to me. Last year was a disaster for me. Rabbits ate everything at ground level. At first I thought I had bad luck with wilt, but then I saw a rabbit chewing through them and noticed the wilted ones had been severed.

For my climate (warm to hot in bloom season), Ernest Markham was more purple than true red. I however, can say it was very vigorous and also self-propagated (stem rooting) uncared for (my parents house) for like almost 40 years. Hearty endorsements as a long-term resident.

I was advised that atragenes don't do well in areas with hot summers. I like a lot of the bloom forms among that group. I may try one or two just to see what happens.

I see great pics of Ernest Markham covered in blooms but have also heard that it's stingy.

One of the problems with suggesting something that is absolutely always red is many cultivars are actually several different cultivars. They get mislabeled and then the mislabeled ones are propagated. And so on. So I may buy X and it's red. Someone else buys X 1000 miles away and it's more purple. They can also have genetic drift over time. The best thing to do is look at one in bloom at the store. I've seen 2 jackmanii side by side in a store and they were clearly different cultivars.

I like Rouge Cardinal and it would be very fitting for your online name

Very clever @peren.all Zone 5a Ontario Canada :)

My experience in my NH garden:

Niobe I tried at least twice from different vendors and in each case it limped along for 2 or 3 years before petering out. Definitely not happy in my garden.

Rebecca was still going strong after perhaps 5 seasons when I moved.

Gravetye Beauty got little attention, but thrived for more than 15 years and I hope that the new owners appreciate it. I did not have foliage issues, and the seedheads are beautiful and long-lasting.

Avante Garde has cute little flowers with pink centers that hold on for more than a week after the red petals drop. It also did well for at least a dozen years, despite having to fight its way up through a vigorously suckering winterberry holly.

Ville de Lyon is fairly widely avaialable, and is another one that lasted 15+ years for me, even in a site that did not have enough sun or any vole protection.

I grew Carmensita in a place that was too shady and too sandy, and it was a nice flower, but I should give it another chance in a better site. I think it finally succumbed to voles one winter.

Check out Allanah, which I haven’t grown but looks to have large red flowers. you may find it available because it is grown by Clearview which I think sells in Canada.

Wow - just on a side note, never heard of Wildwood Express mail order before, but glad to add them to the list of places to check out. Seems the company behind the mail order business has been around for a while.

grown by Clearview which I think sells in Canada.

Hey @NHBabs z4b-5a NH I do recall the Clearview tags. It does seem though that everyone and his Uncle sell (only or mostly) the raymond evison line-up of clems.

I wish the Raymond Evison line of clems would include Viennetta. It is now out of patent.