Northeast Gardening: Clematis, 1 by grampapa

grampapa wrote:
Dawn, I was totally new to clematis. planted 2 (Dr Ruppel and Arctic Queen) in the spring of 2005. they both looked ok in the fall, but spring of '06, only Arctic Queen came up. It got about 5' tall, 4 or 5 nice blooms. But nothing on Dr Ruppel so I figured the winter killed it. I went ahead and ordered Liberation, a very similar one, to replace it. Planted it about 6 inches away from where Dr Ruppel was on the same obelisk. Along about the middle of August 2006, up sprouts Dr Ruppel. next thing you know its almost 6' up the obelisk with several vines and it's getting buds. I kept hoping I would get to see a bloom, but it was the end of October and past time for a hard freeze here. here's the bloom from 11/10.

I heard later from folks that know clematis that this is not unusual. But still seems pretty weird to me.