Moving a clematis.

This evening I worked off some of my Chinese food dinner by moving my clematis from its place in the old perennial bed/vegetable garden to an area at the side of the house near my potting bench/storage area. Last summer Graham dug out a little patch for me there and put up a rectangular trellis on the side of the house, but I didn’t get around to planting anything there. All it was last year was a place to weed grass seedlings from.

I’ve had this clematis for four years now. I bought it when I lived in Toronto and planted it my front yard where it could grow up an old ladder. Here it is in my Toronto garden.

I moved it with me to Bowmanville along with my other perennials and planted it in our back yard. Of course I took my camera outside with me, so I now present to you, Moving the Clematis: A Story in Photos (or something to that effect).
Here is my clematis in its original position, all scraggly and flopping over since last summer and really just begging for a change. I decided to prune above where the new growth seemed to stop. I only ended up pruning it a little…there are a lot of gardening resources out there that detail the different types of clematis and whether you should prune them a little or a lot or in the spring or in the fall, etc. You won’t find that kind of detailed information on this site, but you’re more than welcome to do a little web research to find out. Oh, okay, here’s a good link to get you started if you need more information or are too afraid to just give your clematis a spring trim. I didn’t cut too much off the plant, as you can see. Just tidied it up and I swear I heard it breathe a sigh of relief. Next I had to dig a large enough hole in the new home. And because I know how exciting this process is to my geeky garden friends, here is a photo of the hole I dug. Mmmm, fresh dirt. Then I checked out the composter to see if there was any good stuff at the bottom. There was. Mmmm, fresh compost. I threw some in the bottom of the hole. I dug the clematis out of its original home. The root ball was probably a foot and a half across. That sucker had GROWN. The root ball was not too difficult to remove, though. Mmmm, roots. Roots and dirt are heavy. So I moved them across the yard in our trusty wheelbarrow. At that moment I felt like I totally made up for not going to the gym earlier. I hoisted the plant, roots, dirt and all into the hole, carefully covering the roots with soil, and pressing down firmly. I gave the clematis a long, deep drink of water and kissed her good night. Doesn’t she look happy in her new home?