Hi everyone. Newbie here: I moved over the winter from Midtown Manhattan to a Brooklyn apartment with a back yard and some paved patio space out front (woo hoo!). I'm trying to figure where I can plant a clematis and have it thrive.

The front area is east-facing and gets good strong sunlight in the morning now ... but there are some street trees which will partly block the sun when they leaf out. There's a nice space between our two front windows (we're the ground level aparment) -- one option would be to plant a clematis in a large container with a trellis behind, growing up against the wall of our building. The front area is actually several steps below street level, which might help for keeping the roots cooler, right? We will, however, almost certainly have an air conditioner in one of the windows, which means hot air spewing out not super far from where I'm thinking of planting.

The other option is a south-facing bed in the backyard. Because this is Brooklyn and there are buildings around, it doesn't get full sun in the early morning or late afternoon, but it does get full sun for several hours in the middle of the day. I would, I guess, put a trellis up against the (rotting) fence that surrounds the back yard.

Any advice on which of these locations would be my best bet for clematis? Or might they both work? Or neither? Would jackmanii be a good choice, or is there something else you might recommend?

Thanks in advance!

Leslie