VINES 



varieties of Clematis in bloom is sure to want to 

 grow them. They are very beautiful, it is true, 

 and few plants are more satisfactory when well 

 grown. But — there's the rub — ^to grow them 

 well. 



The variety known as Jackmani, with dark 

 purple-blue flowers, is most likely to succeed 

 under amateur culture, but of late years it has 

 been quite unsatisfactory. Plants of it grow well 

 during the early part of the season, but all at 

 once blight strikes them, and they wither in a 

 day, as if something had attacked the root, and 

 in a short time they are dead. This has discour- 

 aged the would-be growers of the large-flowered 

 varieties — for all of them seem to be subject to 

 the same disease. What this disease is no one 

 seems able to say, and, so far, no remedy for it 

 has been advanced. 



But in Clematis paniculata we have a 

 variety that I consider superior in every respect 

 to the large-flowered kinds, and to date no one 

 has reported any trouble with it. It is of strong 

 and healthy growth, and rampant in its habit, 

 thus making it useful where the large-flowered 

 kinds have proved defective, as none of them are 

 of what may be called free growth. They grow 

 to a height of seven or eight feet — sometimes ten, 



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