I bought a bare root Clematis Henryi from a boxstore in the spring two years ago just as a rescue and really just to see if I could do anything with him and if so how long would it take to get him to any size. Well I planted him and within a week he totally disappeared and I thought oh well I would keep the pot watered and just see what happened. The little plant didn't come back for the remainer of the first year. Last year late spring, early summer he reappeared and grow about 2" and thats where he still is right now. I have 20 plus Clematis to keep me busy and have paid good money for most over the years and believe me you get what you pay for. I purchased 7 last year from Paradise Garden and they where shipped in 4" pots and one even had a bloom on it when I received it. I potted all my new one's up in five gal pots and went to move the pots about a month ago and they had foot long roots already coming out of the bottom of their pots and Crystal Fountain right now is about 4 foot tall and has 8 to 10 large buds on her. So, long team for little box store bare roots its not worth the trouble and the waiting. I am still hoping my little bare root Henryi will make it some day and be a big boy. I am not giving up on him.

Personally, I don't feel they are worth the time to baby along or the money even though cheap. Box store packaged plants are often NOT true to name/label either and that is a big problem for me. May not be for others but it is for me. I no longer buy bulbs or plants in packages from anyone having had so much trouble with them being rotten inside and not true to name.

I got cheap yellow daffs instead of peach/white. I got cheap yellow Asiatic lilies instead of expensive Orientals etc. I give up. Should have known better. Nothing against a bargain but it must be blooming for me to buy at a big box store so I know it is what I am paying for.....

I have purchased really nice Clematis at Home Depot in a gallon pot for ten bucks but they were blooming at the time so I knew they were what they were labeled. I have over 60 Clematis and I don't want duplicates!

In my humble opinion, if you are just starting out with clematis and the plant at the box store is sufficiently cheap, why not give it a try? (Then again, I got the bargain hunter gene from my Mom, so your mileage may vary)

For instance, in the heat of the summer I like to drop by the local Lowes because they have a section of plants that they have "lightly killed". (Usually they missed watering things and those little pots dry up fast in our summer heat)

On one occasion I found a ton of poor little abused, unloved, and unwatered clematis dropping all their leaves, but they were selling them for fifty cents apiece. At that price, I'll take the risk.

A little old lady who was also looking through to see what varieties they had assured me that clematis are tougher than they look and these would bounce back over time. She was totally correct. Every single plant I bought that day is now blooming away in my yard this spring.

I'm sure I would have gotten better and quicker results buying gallon sized plants and the risk of getting something mislabeled would have been lower, but sometimes you just have to love a bargain. Plus, you get the satisfaction of rescuing a poor abused baby from certain death.

Depends on your age and how long you want to wait. I bought a little string of Niobe 3 years ago. This year it's finally making decent growth.

I bought a clematis root from lowes and I was skeptical with me being a beginner and all. The bag was dried out, the sprout was broken, and I wasn't even sure if it was dead or alive! I planted it in a gallon size pot and made sure it was always semi- moist (someone told me that they love water) so I just kept to it. That was in February, now it is about 4 inches with 15 leaves! But yeah, there is still no way to know what kind I actually got.

Just a question from a newbie here...are you sure Clematis are the best choice for trainig up a telephone pole? The don't attach themselves to surfaces in the way that vines such as trumpetcreeper do, so they need a lot of support when being trained vertically. How are you planning on attaching them to the pole?