This is the best year yet, so far, for Nellie. I planted her 3 years ago and have patiently suffered through only a few flowers, buoyed by the encouraging comments here that it takes a few years for a clematis to really take hold.

I followed the advice given here of pruning the awakening vine down to the 2nd node from the ground, and placing alfalfa around the base of my plant, which seemed to give it a significant boost.

Now Nellie is leafing out as never before, and has 5 buds. I wanted to know, how long do the buds hang there as buds before they open?