Henryi Clematis

The huge white and green flowers are set off nicely against all the foliage

For the size of garden that we have, there is a surprising number of Clematis.  The reason being is the mother absolutely loves them so has bought a few, and they are my failsafe Mothers Day present which is how this one got bought a couple of years ago.   I thought that as we have so many I would just do a little post on each one.

I went for white, as she prefers the really traditional deep royal purple and white colours, where as I rather like the more unusual ones, surprise surprise.  I would say that unlike many white clematis which often have touches of purple on them, this one is different with touches of green to it.  Down the front of each sepal (the petal bit) when they first open is a vague green stripe that fades off in the sun and the central stamen is green and yellow.  I would say that the flowers are quite large being roughly the size of a medium plate.

Together we chose to put it in the empty space in the front part of the garden behind a Camellia.  It was a complete mare getting it planted for two reasons.

1.     It is difficult to dig a hole when you have to stand about two feet away on the other side of a bush.

2.     Our soil is solid clay; it is difficult to dig a hole wherever you stand.

After a struggle it was in.  Clematis like to have their feet in shade but their flowers in the sun so the theory was that as it grew up into the gap it would get late afternoon sun and be fine.  However that first year it didn’t grow very much as only being a small plant it was all in the shade so wasn’t that happy.  The second year it did much better being a bit bigger but a new problem developed.  As the buds developed big and fat and I got all excited, something started munching.  Something ate its way into each bud and polished off the flower before it even opened.  I think, through some research that it could have been hungry earwigs but I have no idea why.  We have never had this issue before, I don’t know if being situated in quite a leafy dark corner makes it more susceptible.  This only happened the one year.  The only other drawback is because the sepals are large and quite thin they get damaged easily.

Henryi flowers on last years wood and now its got going it has shot up the flowers really stand out silhouetted against the gloom of the dark corner and against the sky.  Letting it grow tall has meant the undersides of the flowers are visible and these actually have more colour being tinged green and red.  It could probably do with a prune after this year otherwise we wont be able to see the flowers at all.

The flowers getting away from us, but looking pretty silhouetted against the sky

Henryi's slight drawback, pray there isn't heavy rain or critters when its blooming or they will quickly look less like the ones on the right and more like the beauties on the left.

Henryi isn’t my favourite clematis but the flowers work well glowing out of a dark corner and the green elements are different and blend in well in quite a green leafy area, so if your garden is very green and you don’t want something to stand out too much, this would be a good one to go for.