A May blog post by Pam Penick who writes at Digging introduced me to a royal clematis that looks perfect to ramble and scramble around my two new purple tuteurs. See Tuteur-ial… and Les deux tuteurs sont finis! for their story.

Once I had my heart set on Clematis ‘Princess Diana’ I had no choice but hunt her down on the internet. Several sources I have previously ordered from with good results have it listed on their sites but marked SOLD OUT. I finally found a couple at Joy Creek Nursery in Scappoose, Oregon–not exactly plant material grown in conditions similar to mine but beggars can’t be choosers. I am hopeful their claim of healthy 2 year old roots is true as I grit my teeth at the $25 per plant price tag. Of course, they arrived the day before I was to leave for the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling. They were really well packed and looked no worse for wear when I finally got all the packing off them. Probably the best looking plant material–size especially–than anything else I’ve received from a mail order source.

With high temps in the forecast and my husband off on our church mission trip to Paradise I didn’t want to chance leaving them in their containers without even a pair of eyes to check on them daily, I decided they were better off in the ground where they would get a some sprinkler water at least twice in my absence. With a good layer of peat moss at their bases and my fingers crossed, I left for Denver. Nagging self doubt at the airport prompted me text my neighbor with a pleas to pour a pitcher of water on each in a couple of days. I’m sure she thought I was nuts but hey, $50 is $50.

Before I kissed my husband hello and looked at the accumulated mail, the first stop on my return was to check on my two princesses. Woo-hoo! Looking good with new growth starting to wind up the extra string support inside the tuteur.

Kathy Kreitman of Joy Creek Nursery was kind enough to give permission to use their website’s archive photo to show you the beautiful flowers on this clematis hybrid. Some sites list it as a Clematis texensis and I can certainly see that species in the upward facing bell shaped flowers. This is a summer flowering clematis in pruning group 3 so it needs a good bit of new year’s growth to get late summer/early fall flowering. Still keeping my fingers crossed til I see those raspberry blooms!