| Like crushed velvet, the midnight-red blooms of 'Niobe' glow with rich color, brilliantly offset by a slender, prominent center of bright yellow. Simply the best red Clematis we know, 'Niobe' is floriferous and blooms over a long summer season on compact, manageable 8- to 10-foot vines. It complements all your pink, blue, and purple Clematis magnificently, and makes a magnificent solitary planting in its own right! These 4-inch blooms simply radiate bright color from late spring to early autumn. One of the best where summers are especially hot, it keeps going when lesser plants melt out in the heat and humidity! And every flower is a masterpiece, suffused with a ruby glow you'd expect to shine in the dark! The flowers open nearly black, then mature to deep red — a fantastic effect on a fully blooming plant! Just the right size for the mailbox, pillar, or container of any type, 'Niobe' reaches 8 to 10 feet high and about 3 to 4 feet wide. Try a large planting along an ugly chain-link fence or a stone wall — your landscape will be transformed! Clematis is easy to grow in a rich, porous, alkaline soil with plenty of room for the roots to spread. Best performance is when the tops are in full sunlight and the roots are shaded, so apply a generous mulch or a shallow-rooted groundcover near the base of the vine. Very reliable performers once established, they take a season or two to get going. 'Niobe' is a Group II Clematis for pruning purposes, which means that in early spring you should cut back the vine 6 or 8 inches to the nearest pair of strong leaf axil buds. Zones 4-9. |
