Texas Gardening: Mandevillas and Clematis in TX, 1 by hill5422

hill5422 wrote:
Hi greenie, welcome to Texas and DG's!

vossner is right about the clematis and it liking its roots kept cool and moist with a lot of mulch. I have managed to kill more clematis than I have been successful with. Sweet autumn clematis has done the best for me and it smells wonderful. From my experience in my yard with the clematis I have grown, I have learned that a regimen of afternoon shade with sun in the morning and again in the late afternoon to evening really helped the clematis do its best.

I have had more success with mandevilla than clematis. For years I treated mandevilla as an annual and would buy a new plant each year. Well, that gets costly at 25 bucks a pop. So, cheapskate at heart that I have become, about three years ago I tried overwintering it and it worked well.

I have never put a mandevilla in the ground. I keep it in an appropriately sized pot (have upgraded when necessary) and let it fill up a trellis until just before the first frost. When that is predicted in the fall, I simply cut all the branches growing to the trellis and bring the pot inside for the winter and give it minimal care. In the spring when the last possibly frost date is past, I set it outside again and let it start up the trellis for the next growing season. Below is a pic of my mandevilla as of today.