Meet the 'Other' Clematis
For instance, it makes a great groundcover. And it spreads quickly. If you buy one of the fast growing small flowered types like the Sweet Autumn clematis you don't even have to cut it back - so you don't go through that bare period before it gets going in spring.
I bought one of those to tumble over the stone walls of my main garden - and part of it did. The rest grabbed onto a nearly lilac tree, scrambled through it and when it got tot he top grabbed the branch of an overhanging sycamore - quite a site when the plant is in bloom.
And of course that experience had me eyeballing every tree and shrub on the property wondering how it would look full of clematis flowers. They were a natural in the garden full of old heirloom roses which flower so spectacularly in June and then stop for the year. Now they also bloom in July, August - right through October - although the flowers don't resemble any roses that anyone has ever seen.
In the Cornus kousa that I have one scrambling through the effect is nearly trompe l'oeil, since the clematis flowers aren't really terribly different - at least at first glance - from the dogwood flowers of the earlier season. Quite the opposite of the C. jackmanii that I drape over a golden Chamaecyparis pisifera - the bold purple blooms really stand out against the gold - and it has fooled at least one person into believing that evergreens bloom if you treat them right. So I planted a few more under junipers and even a couple of cherry trees with limbs low enough for the little tendrils to grab onto without too much preliminary training.
In a pinch I've also used them right in the beds, allowing them to roam through and around the perennials. This is a good trick when the bed is new and looks a bit sparse, as it fills in space rather elegantly if you take the time to coax it so that it looks like it belongs, instead of as if it's trying to take over.
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