 Clematis tangutica
- Click here to visit our Main Plant List page for current availability of this plant
- common names: golden clematis
- flowering season: summer to fall
- height: 30 feet or more in time
- Light requirements: sun
- Soil requirements: average
- Water requirments: average
- Growth habit: a vine that can grow quickly
- How to propagate: seeds or tip cuttings
- Leaf type: deciduous leaves with three to five leaflets
- Ways to use it such as in a pot or otherwise: covering an arbor, growing along the top of a fence or up the support of a trellis
- Special characteristics: the golden flowers change into downy heads of seeds
Being a native to northern China and Mongolia, this deciduous vine can happily withstand severe winter cold, to USDA Zone 3 (minus forty, -40°F). A young plant will take a year to settle into a new home in your garden, though by its second year you should be prepared to jump back as it explodes into rapid growth. That second year it might not grow to a spread of twenty feet, but be forewarned it has that potential. It will climb any nearby support such as a fence, trellis or neighboring plant. Its flowers are light golden yellow and face downwards, blooming for us all summer into fall. The first flowers turn into small fluffy heads of seeds as new flowers keep appearing. If left to themselves, the seeds will blow off the vine and sow themselves around your garden. We do not think of the seedling plants as much of a problem -- they are easily spotted and removed or replanted elsewhere. A mature plant can be pruned back hard, close to ground level in winter or early spring. It quickly regrows to its full size in just a few months, and will rebloom well that year. |
|
