Wilting Passion Flower

Hi,

This is a picture of "Lavendar Lady" whom was planted in April. She was doing great up until a few weeks ago, and then her runners started wilting and dying. I thought maybe it wasn't wet enough, so I added some more water but it's not helping. We've been getting very intense sun lately, could this spot be too hot for her? Please respond quickly if possible, since I only have a few days before my plant guarrantee is up. I hate to replace her since she's a beauty, but maybe I should try something more appropriate for this spot.

Thank you, Christina

I'll preface this by saying I have never grown a Clematis in my life, so if someone who has comes along and contradicts me, by all means trust them! It's hard to tell from your pic how much shading the roots have...it looks like you have some things growing down there but it's hard to tell if it's enough. If you don't think you have enough stuff shading the roots, you might try putting down some mulch to keep the soil cool. The other thing I noticed is that all the dying stuff seems to be coming from one branch that comes from the base of the vine, and the other branch looks perfectly healthy (I'm not sure if branch is the correct word since it's a vine but hopefully you know what I mean). I wonder if this one branch got chewed, bent, or somehow else partially or fully separated from the plant--that would explain why it's dying and the other half isn't. Have you checked for that? Vines have such thin stems sometimes, if it gets bent the wrong direction you can end up with part dying back like that.

Hi ecrane, Thanks for the advice. The wierd thing is that I thought I snapped one of the vines last time while trying to train it to the trellis. It died, and then Saturday I cut off all the dead stuff and took the healthy vines and spread them to where they are now. Unless it's just extremely fragile, they shouldn't have snapped since I was already really conscious of doing that. The roots are shaded pretty well, but not on purpose. All the plants in the forground are day lilies and they're pretty thick. I'm thinking this might be from heat or too much/too little water but not sure which. I'd like to replace it with something else if it's ill suited for this spot.

I would still maybe check again for broken or bent vines, even if you were super careful ...if it was a water problem or a problem with the location, I think the whole vine would be showing signs of stress and the one piece looks totally healthy, at least in your picture. Again, I don't have experience with Clematis, but I've found other vines can tend to be fragile...you don't even have to break the stem, if you bend it too much in the wrong direction I think it crushes some of the channels within the stem that bring up water and nutrients.

Ok, I'll check it out. You're right about the one vine that is healthy. :) Thank you

This looks like my plants after the gophers have gotten to it. I would definetly check and see if there is stem broken.

Oh my gosh, I bet it was from bunnies or mice! We have both since we're at the bottom of a canyon. I hadn't even thought of that! I'll try cutting it back and adding a little screening around it to see if that helps. Thanks!