A Nice Surprise

One of my favorite native flowers is Fremont's clematis, but when I first got a plant, I ended up planting it at church, and not at home.  Since figuring out how much I like it, I have found they are hard to find, and difficult to grow from seeds.  The flower bed it's in is surrounded by cement, and gets very little water.  I have tried planting its seeds here without success.  Last year, our local arboretum got some more, after not having them for a few years.  The ones I got are still small, and I was even wondering if they really are Fremont's clematis, because the leaves don't look quite the same to me.

This spring, I found some at Finke Garden's and Nursery that were nice sized, along with a nice sized price tag.  The man, who I think is one of the owners told me he grew them from the plants out front, and it takes awhile for them to get to that size.  Well, I splurged, knowing how hard it is to find these.  The plant at church has long been finished blooming for the season, so I was not expecting this one to bloom this year.   I was a little loud with my excitement this evening, just before a downpour of rain, but I managed to get a few photos taken, and wanted to put a couple in a post.  I may even go put a link on Gail's Wildflower Wednesday post, even though I already did one.

These plants stay in a short, bushy clump.

This may be a plant that looks better in person, but I think this is a sweet little bloom.  I hope my other ones get big enough to bloom next year.



I am thankful we ended up with half an inch of rain in our gauge between last night's tiny bit, and this evening's sudden arrival and departure.  There was even some small hail that I wasn't happy about.  Hey, and it is now 74 degrees, and is supposed to get down to 64!  A couple nights ago, it was still 90ish at this time.  I hope the cooler temps bring some relief to the farmers.  We still need more rain, though.

Have a great weekend!   We're going to a family reunion Saturday, a couple hours away.  After I garden in the morning, I need to come in and put together some food to take.  I got our kitchen floor swept and scrubbed today, after a yogurt container fell out and made a mess. 

Oh, and I just went to label this, and found I had done a couple posts on trying to grow it.  The leaves on the photo I had included in the first one are a little different from these, but it could be age of the plant, or growing conditions.  Here's a link to those posts.