Another of my garden favourites this week, the famous – and ubiquitous- clematis montana, has reached it’s peak this week. We actually have two planted that are gradually covering the back of our house where we have a small deck: 

During heavy rain the other night I came down to the kitchen to find the back door open and a mass of confetti blown in on the floor… 

It has been such lovely weather lately so I have been working out on the deck in the evenings. 

The scent from the clematis has made it such a joy, I have never really noticed clematis montana had much of a perfume, but this has been a particularly lovely one. I have used clematis in other gardens, it’s a brilliant plant for hiding ugly features like a particularly unattractive garage wall covered in pebble dash when we lived in Scotland. It also seems to grow well in pots. Another advantage of the clematis montana is the fact it does not require pruning unlike other types.

Other clematis are also well established favourites of ours, including this summer flowering variety. I’m not quite sure which one it is, perhaps “The President”. But in spite of the advice to cut these hard back in spring, my husband has been experimenting with keeping one long strand, in an attempt to get it to grow into the apple tree. We will see how good the flowers are this year, but so far it’s working. 

Sadly the flowering time has been all too brief this year, the warm weather combined with the heavy rain and wind in the night and this morning, has left our terrace covered in a fine scattering of confetti. There is something about the very fragile petals which I found quite moving, a reminder to really pay attention and enjoy the passing of the seasons from spring to summer.