Shrub ident please

[JohnnyD]

Got this from Edrom (I think) but label gone the way of many.
J.

[olegKon]

It's surely a Clematis. C. heracleifolia, I think

[JohnnyD]

Thanks Oleg - now I remember!
Johnnie

[Lesley Cox]

"label gone the way of many" prompts me to ask, if we could all start over again with gardening would we do things differently? I started just over 50 years ago and I'm sure (I hope) that I would take better care of the labels, make proper lists and remember to update them, remember where I planted things, remember to attack the nasties before they themselves attacked, and most of all, look after the plants with more love, care and common sense. If I had done all that in the first place, I would be gardening on at least 50 acres by now.

[Rodger Whitlock]

"label gone the way of many" prompts me to ask, if we could all start over again with gardening would we do things differently? I started just over 50 years ago and I'm sure (I hope) that I would take better care of the labels, make proper lists and remember to update them, remember where I planted things, remember to attack the nasties before they themselves attacked, and most of all, look after the plants with more love, care and common sense. If I had done all that in the first place, I would be gardening on at least 50 acres by now.

What I'm wondering, Lesley, is just which particular branch of "life of crime" you would have taken up to pay for the gardeners you'd need on staff to maintain a 50-acre garden. Judging from recent reports of major lucrative crime, it seems like you have to either head up a South American drug cartel, or run a Ponzi scheme on a large scale (like Bernard Madoff) and strip innumerable retirees of their hard-earned wealth. Which shall it be?

To actually address your remarks: I used to throw the labels of the deceased into a small trash container, capacity about 25 liters. When it filled up, I decided that this was simply too melancholy a reminder to be tolerated of how many plants I'd killed out of ignorance and carelessness; I threw all the labels away. I estimate that for every taxon growing and thriving in my garden today, I've killed five to ten others in the 20+ years I've been at this address.

What's important isn't keeping the labels, but keeping the plants. Our gardens are quite densely planted and we take a heavy crop off the land as a result. [Credit to the late Susan Ryley of Victoria, and the late Kevyn Nicolay of Seattle for pointing this out to me many long years ago.] Simply put, you must feed your garden, and feed it rather well if you want to keep everything in good heart. In my own garden, I find that a general feed of granular 13-16-10 fertilizer in the early fall does wonders without making anything look overfed.  You don't even have to do this every year; every other year may be more than adequate. I just broadcast the fertilizer rather lightly over the entire garden, flower beds and lawn both, at a rate of no more than a few ounces per square yard (for readers unfamiliar with Imperial units, this is equivalent to approximately 50-100 g per square meter).

It's a strategy every serious gardener should contemplate taking up.

[Paul T]

Rodger,

For others reading Rodger's recommendation....... just a word of warning to be careful doing this broad-scale scattering of fertiliser if you're growing some of the Australian natives that are Phosphorus sensitive.   Still not being sure of exactly how widespread the Aussie natives are overseas, I thought it worthwhile mentioning just in case.  Many of the Grevilleas would be bothered by a P of 16 I would think, but so much of it depends on plant to plant and what else is removing it from the area around them.  There's always people here in Australia who lose a Grevillea that is planted in the midst of their lawn because they fertilise the lawn and it kills the fertiliser.  Most of you probably don't grow the Phosphorus senssitive plants, but I wanted to mention it just to be safe.    I tend to do a regular fertilising, but I tend to go the organic fertiliser (chicken pellets or something like that) for when I apply all over the garden.  Then I use a bulb fertiliser for specific things within the garden etc on a more "personal" level for certain plants.  

Either way, Rodger is right and we so often don't give our plants nearly enough top up of fertiliser.  Some of you in the deciduous areas of course naturally get the leaf fall and the like, which we don't get here naturally.... Although with the amount of exotic deciduous plants in my garden now that is less of a problem. 

[Rodger Whitlock]

For others reading Rodger's recommendation....... just a word of warning to be careful doing this broad-scale scattering of fertiliser if you're growing some of the Australian natives that are Phosphorus sensitive.

A good point.

Aren't some South African genera (Protea comes to mind) also very sensitive to phosphorus?

[Paul T]

Rodger,

Yes, most of the Proteaceae family have problems with Phosphorus to some degree.  I meant to mention the South African stuff as well, but forgot.  I have no idea whether the South American Embothrium is sensitive or not, but it is also Proteaceae.  Apparently there are also some sensitivities in some of the Rutaceae, Myrtaceae and Fabaceae here in Aus, but I don't know whether the same is true for the South African members or not?  Again, a lot of this depends on individual species.  Just mentioning it to be aware of it.  Thanks for picking up that I forgot to mention the non-Aussie stuff.