We are in the process of selling our old house and moving into a new one in the same area. I have a Nellie Moser (actually 2) who've been happily decorating a large 6' bird cage in the corner of my old yard for about the past 10 years. I really want to bring them to my new home, but I'm scared to death that I will kill them by moving them. I've become very attached to them.
So here are my questions:
1. How much of the vine should I try to preserve? I actually unwound a lot of it from the cage about a month ago thinking if I broke it pulling it out, it could recover before I had to move it. I'm not living in the old house anymore (but it hasn't sold yet) so I haven't looked at Nellie lately to see if she's tangled herself back in the cage or not. Should I try to keep a lot of the vine, or cut it short?
2. How extensive (deep and wide) is her root system likely to be? I'll definitely have to move the bird cage before I can dig them up.
3. Should I keep her/them in a pot over the winter or go ahead and put them in the ground? I'm not sure yet where they're going but by the time I move them, I hope will have found a place. It's just that we don't have the beds full of soil yet, so I'm not sure exactly where that ideal "shady feet, sunny head" place is going to be. Their current spot is absolutely perfect, in a corner of a privacy fence, with their feet under some low growing plants and the top on the cage with tree-filtered sun.
4. Can I root some cuttings too just in case I kill the main plants? I haven't had much experience doing that, but if the clematis are open to the idea, so am I.
I'm hoping for advice, success stories and confidence boosters! ;o)
Moving beloved Nelly Moser
Bumping post. Can I get some replies on this? I'm almost ready to do something with her, and I'd really appreciate some help.
Well Nelly is a B group which means she blooms on old and new wood. So it would be best if you did not cut down all the growth - of course if you have to it probably just means it would not bloom much next year because you would probably be removing the old wood but it would bloom on new later in the year. And then it should be fine the year after.
Also Nelly apparently does best in partial shade rather than the usual shady feet, sunny head location.
Dont know about the root but just take as big a root ball as you possibly can and then replant her in her new home, I would not try to overwinter her in a pot.There is still time to plant - dont know if/when your ground freezes but sure you have lots of time.
Dont know about cuttings either - never tried. When you replant her put her a few inches deeper than she currently is planted - that way if anything happens to the root you have some live area above it which will root itself.
Hope this helps.
Thank you so much! That helps a lot! I don't mind missing some bloom, as long as she survives the move. But I'll try to keep as much of her vine as possible, and plant her deep.
On the part about preferring more shade, would full morning sun for 2 or 3 hours be okay? I can still plant other stuff around her feet, but from about 9:00 to maybe noon, she'd get some sun. Also, there is usually a mild breeze in this area.
I have another place where she'd be in the shadow of the house pretty much all day, but it would be a bright open area, not deep dark shade. It wouldn't have the steady breeze of the first place, but nor would it be closed in.
I have two Nellies that have been climbing on a large bird cage. I may just put one in each place. I haven't figured out a place where the bird cage will look right at the new house.
I just took that info about shade from a website about clematis - no experience with that particular one myself.Here's what it says:
about 'Nelly Moser' includes the suggestion that the plant looks best in partial shade, and should not be subjected to full or all-day sun. Gardeners who fail to allow for this are all too likely to have a splendidly productive vine that covers itself with big, handsome flowers which everyone will admire for perhaps as much as a week, and which then turn a painful raddled gray. The only merciful thing to do with such a spectacle is to cut it down, but there may not be many of us who could stand up to the challenge. With dappled sunlight no such disaster occurs; the flowers fade gently, and the colourless stage is soon gone. This option applies to all the large-flowered clematis to some degree. The maxim "Heads in the sun, feet in the shade" is one of those rules of thumb that ignore too many fingers. It is appropriate for sites that offer temperate conditions. Clematis do indeed like sun, and need it for growth and flowering. Even so, what they like most about the sun is its light, not necessarily its heat. Put one of them in a hot spot, and if it has no shelter from day-long sun it can soon have trouble functioning and in the hottest weather may shut down. So in many sites it makes sense to avoid the danger by giving some overhead protection from all-day exposure. Host-plants can provide it; so can overhanging boughs. It is especially important for the barred varieties like 'Nelly Moser,' and some other vividly coloured ones that stand to lose most of their beauty from too-rapid fading.
fancyvan,
You described my Nellie. Mine is in hot sun all day. After it blooms and there are just vines, the vines dry up and turn brown. So it looks like a dead vine (ugly) on the fence instead of green foliage. I'am going to give mine one more summer in this spot just to see what it does. If it dries up and turns brown, I will move it to shade.
Thank you for the responses. I may indeed have put it in too much sun, but we'll see. It's on the East side of the house, so I was thinking it wouldn't get too much of the afternoon heat, but I was working out there over the weekend and it did get pretty strong sun until about 3:00. I'm planting a shrub next to it though.
I did successfully transplant both plants and they are even putting out some new growth (See the little bit of green at the bottom of the pic?) so I know they're happy. It's kinda late for the new growth to be coming out, but we've had highs still in the 80's here, so they're confused. Wednesday it's supposed to approach 90! Hopefully they won't be damaged when it does finally get colder.
Instead of planting them on the birdcage this time, I put them on separate trellises. I wasn't sure where I wanted to put the birdcage when the time came to plant them. Now I kinda wish I had put them on it because they really were the perfect vine for it, but oh well.
Peeper I think the trellis looks great - do you have one on the other side too? And now you can buy a couple more clematis to put on the birdcage when you decide where you want it!
my Nellie is in about 6 hours of morning sun and doesn''t fade too fast. it's a tough vine. I had a garden 'helper' cut it down to the ground last year and it came back better than ever. It does go through that ugly stage in the middle of the summer though. If you cut off the brown stuff you lose the second bloom.
Just wanted to say both Nellies are doing well and on Christmas Day, when I had family staying over, one of them noticed a bloom! I didn't even know it was there. It was kind of a scraggly one way down at the bottom, but how amazing is that to have a clematis bloom on Christmas Day?!