I would probably plant two of them in that 18-20" spot. I plant things much closer than 5'!

Lily..NO you don't want to plant them 5 feet apart..find the center of your trellis and plant them 6-8" from center on each side..are these in pots?..How big of pots?..You will want to plant them 2-4 inches deeper than the pots they are in putting the 1st leaf axil under the soil line. Remember that clematis like to have their roots stay MOIST..NOT SOGGY..but moist (that is what people mean when they said their roots need to stay "cool" very confusing so use the term moist) ..if this area will not only accomplish that but give them 6-8 hours of sun then it's the perfect spot to plant..If you have no problem with critters sprinkle a handful of bonemeal in each planting hole..remember to do the finger test daily and if the soil is drying out water...this is essential for the survival of your newly planted clematis..Jeanne

The pots they're in right now aren't too big, maybe 6" in diameter.

Another question I have is, aside from watering, should I just let them be since this is my first year with them? If I plant them now (I'm in MN if it helps), what kind of growth should I expect to see this year. I have a Jackman and a Ramona I want to plant.

How do I know what type of pruning I'll need to do? The instruction thing on both of them says to prune while dormant - I have no clue what that means! Thanks for your help!

IF it was me..I would repot them into one gallon pots..Dig the holes where I told you to..and drop the pots in the hole and bring the soil back up around the pots..making sure the soil line in the pot equals the soil line in your garden..and leave them in those pots...keeping them moist and pull up the pots and plant right in the hole left from pulling the pots up this fall..you want to continue hard pruning them this season..you want them to focus on growing a bigger rootsystem and not focus on growing vines..Always hard prune clematis the first year..Your "Jackmanii" is a pruning group 3 (Blooms on new vines grown during the season) and is hard pruned the same time the forsythias are in bloom or when you prune your roses for your zone..Clematis "Ramona" is a pruning group 2 and is ONLY pruned AFTER its first flush of blooms in late Spring and ONLY to shape and keep in bounds for it blooms on vines grown from previous growing seasons.

I've got 6 new plants that I've repotted into 1 gallon pots. My question is how do I prune them? You say to "hard prune", but what exactly does that mean? I've never grown Clematis before.

Hard prune means to whack them off close to the ground. I do mine at six inches but some conservatively prune above the lowest set of visibly growing buds. I whack because I prefer to have more vines up from the crown and no bare stems.

With apologies to Jeanne who has a long growing season, many far northern clematis gardeners don't use the technique of growing for a season in gallon pots since our growing season is so short and the goal is to get the clematis as well established as possible before the ground freezes so that we don't lose them to frost heaves in the next fall or spring. I keep mine in their pots until danger of frost has passed and give them some protection on cold nights such as bringing them inside if they have been shipped from a warmer zone and are more advanced than my current clematis. Then I just plant them out in my garden in really good soil a few inches below the level in the pot as Jeanne said, and mulch them well and make sure they don't dry out. I haven't lost a clematis planting directly into the garden and most are blooming in the second year. They will grow above ground some the first year, but much of their growth in the first year will be below ground, establishing roots. The classic wisdom is that the first year they sleep, the second year creep, and the third year leap. Larger plants initially will grow much faster and fill in more quickly than smaller plants.

As far as pruning in my cold zone, I can prune a type 3 like Jackmanii any time after early November, but usually do it on the first warm day in March or April when I'm itching to get out into the garden but there aren't many garden chores to do yet. Type 2s may be pruned by harsh winter weather (combination of cold and wind) and will only do the second bloom, though often I do get a first flush of blooms from where the vine was below the snow line or from plants in sheltered locations. I only have a few type 2's for that reason, but would love to hear how Ramona performs for you since I'd like to plant a Ramona in memory of my grandmother.

nhbabs - Ramona is one of the few clems that I have tried multiple times and never had any luck with. The others are HFYoung and Triternata Rubromarginata. I don't know what the problem is, but I'd really like to grow all 3. I don't think of clematis as being cold-sensitive like roses, but since I grow a ton of others successfully, I have really started to wonder about it.

Jeanne...show Lily pictures of all your roses and clematis so she'll know you're our resident expert! Jeanne, how many do you have now, it must be about 30 or more by now?