Monroe County Master Gardener Association

I did a bit of web searching on the very popular Clematis on my side yard.  I’ve included some photos for you.    This seemed to be the hit of the Garden Tour and many were interested in its name.  During my web search I’ve discovered Clematis heracleifolia.  There seems to be a few varieties so I suggest you search Images and choose the one you like best.  I’m still unsure of the variety of mine.  The bloom seems to match “Jouiniana” however the foliage doesn’t seem to match exactly.  This information however may give you a head start to find this prolific bloomer.

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Here’s a post from Jennie Stanger.  This sounds like a great daytime place to visit.

Rakers is a large wholesale greenhouse operation near Litchfield, MI. It does a huge annual display garden that consumers can visit in August. You can see some photos at http://trialgardens.raker.com/  Several major seed suppliers like Syngenta and Jelitto pay the grower to trial their newest varieties and to plant a large, designed raised bed to show off their combinations, plus Rakers has some demonstrations of their own.  I got to go along with the Milan Garden Club for a scheduled tour last week and it was well worth the trip. Besides, we visited Hillsdale’s small college arboretum and a neat succulent place all in the same day.

The greenhouse tour reminded us of Four Star except they grow more plants from seeds. Some of the points we found interesting were the need for stripping media from the roots of cyclamen seedlings when transplanting, so that the forming tuber can be placed atop the next container where it gets exposed to light; the air-conditioned “editing” room where machines and people fix plug trays by plucking out empty cells and replacing them with plants from another tray; the FEDEX shipping containers shaped to fit into an airplane fuselage and carry boxed plants from Rakers around the world; and of course the lush irrigated plants on display.

In this bed at Rakers’ hot colors prevail. In the second photo a new Echinacea “Pow Wow Wild Berry” is a little overwhelmed by its neighbors and you can see the features that made it an All-America selection this year: compact stature with intense flower color on wide petals. It probably would be better in the front of the border and the designer may have been thinking of more normal-sized coneflowers.

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