Is it too late to plant my clematis?

Hello everyone,

I am new at gardening, but it's been a dream of mine to have one for a long time. My husband and I recently bought our first house and there was one already established (with about 40 different types and most of them have multiples). We have a quarter acre lot. There are several spots that have plants established, and most of them need to be split (thankfully the previous owners informed us of this).

At our housewarming party, we received a Clematis Ramona with a trellis and it hasn't flowered yet (I'm not expecting it to until next year). My question is....is it too late to plant into the ground? I'm starting to see the roots at the bottom of the pot it came in, and I know that's not best for it. Or would it be best to tranport it into a larger pot until fall/early spring then plant it into the ground then?

I also thought about planting it next to my yew and have it vine itself in that. The only problem with that is that is...I am aware to plant the feet in the shade. and the only shaded area with the yew is against the garage. Our house faces south so the sun goes directly over the property.

Please help.

Hi Luv-Lee! Sterling Heights is a nice city, I'm sure you'll be happy there. You can plant your clematis now, but not on one of those nasty hot days we've been having. To keep the bottom shaded, I use mulch and that works fine so you can put it pretty much anywhere.

Lots of questions about your new Clemetis so I will try going through them one at a time.
Yes your can plant the Clemetis into the garden,
You are right, the plant needs to come out from the pot as the roots are getting no moisture, neutrients and will be too dry a condition for the Clemetis.
You do need to plant the roots in shade, or make a shade for them, grow a shrub in front or cover roots with a large stone etc, but the branches/stems need to be in sun to get a good show or flowers.
You need to look at the label on your plant to find out the hight it will be expected to reach once it has matured as this could indicate what size of support the plant will need, ie, if your Yew is very tall, and your clemetis only grows to 3 feet, it will flower around the bottom of the yew and might be a dissapointment to you,
You Can also grow it in a really large pot, but I personally think they are happier in the ground/garden where you wont need to disturb the roots again whereas in pots, you need repot them and Clenetis dont like root disturbance.
Planting in the earth/garden, soak the plant in the pot, overnight if you have to, in a bucket of water, choose the spot either trellis or other, like shrub, climbing rose, tree ect, the Clemetis needs to be planted about a foot away from any plant used as support or the tree/shrub roots will choke the clenetis roots, plant the root into the soil on the shade side of the support and gently spread the branches/stems onto the sunny side of the support, the Clemetis will over a week or so, start to cling naturally to the support by it's self, you need to water it also.
How to plant, dig a hole 2 times the depth of the pot and 2 times the width, into the hole add as much manure/compost as you can as these plants are greedy feeders, need a cool root area and plenty moisture, so this will help to give that, if useing bought compost, add some plant food to this at the rate stated on the feed container, dont add extra thinking it will help, too much and you will burn the root,
it is best to plant all Clemetis about 4 or6 inch deeper than it was in the pot as they are prone to stem rot and no one knows why, but deeper planting means that if the stem does rot at ground level, the plant will throw up new shoots the following year. to encourage it to grow through the yew or other shrub/tree, once in the earth, gently try untangle a few of the stems, (they are easy broken and damaged) and just hold them in your hand and push your hand into the bush, then your other hand can gently pull further up the shrub to get the stems to come back out to the outer bush where you want to see the flowers, it might be slow for a couple of years, but well worth the waite, keep watering and feeding around the root system as the yew is a tree that will starve the Clemetis of water and moisture, if you grow this into a tree/shrub etc, I dont think you will need to prune the clemetis, but if onto a trellis, it might eventually grow too large, not knowing the type of plant you have and there are hundreds, you might want to think of another shrub/tree for support as the yew just might be over powering as regards feed, water, and light, all your other perenial plants arebest split and replanted in spring, or, end of summer where the heat is less intensive and you have time to prepare the new area and soil as for the clemetis, you could go to your local librery and get a few books that will help you to identify all your plants and how to care for them, the main thing for the first year of planting or replanting is water and feed, by the way, use gloves while working with yew as it can cause reactions to skin, also the berry's are poisonous if eaten by humans, dogs etc, but the birds love them and not harmed. good luck, happy gardening
WeeNel.

Wow!!! Thank you for the great amount of information! This will come in handy for me. I know the perfect spot to plant this, in which I have decided to not use the yew and just use the trellis we received. I'm excited about seeing how this will look all bloomed and spread out.

Thank you again. I hope that one day I could help someone out like you have for us.