That is very interesting. I will be waiting for photos of the forest in bloom as well. Thanks for sharing these beginning photos.

What are the trees made out of? That looks really interesting and good looking even without the clems .

That will really suit the clematis...getting them up in a tree ;)

The 'trees' are made from welded iron rods, rusted. Here are closer views of the trunk and top:

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Cool - thanks.

Wow - Very interesting!!

woody, i am very intrigued by this clem tree idea but i confess that (maybe i'm completely wrong here) i don't see it working well. I have many 'obelisks' planted with clems, and the plants seem to need the width, ~18" , to contain them w/o looking too wild/chaotic. But then again, my obelisks are not as tall as those 'trees' so maybe their height and the width of the tree branches at the top- takes care of the containment issue.... I can't wait to see how they fill up at maturity. I wonder if the clems are going to be able to grow up the rebar or if they'll need help w/ C clips or something? I read that clems like to be able to attach their tendrils every 6" or so.

But it would be so great if the rebar tree idea does work; trees scattered about through both display and naturalistic garden beds- would be great!

They're going to be beautiful!!

Thanks for the follow-up! I like Margaret Hunt, too, and noticed it as an appealing plant for the first time this spring. I love the gappy petals.

FYI - I e-mailed RBG this morning to get more details about the 'clematis trees', including inquiring about where they got the structures, and how they will be pruning the vines. This is the reply I got:

'The
‘tree structures’ were manufactured by Dan Klick from K-Weld in Burlington.
They were custom made for our clematis collection. Dan worked with a designer
and our staff to come up with this.

The
tree structures are set in concrete footings in 4' deep sonotubes.

This
clematis collection was installed last year and therefore very little pruning
has been completed thus far, other than some tidying up. Once the plants are
fully established, we do plan to prune according to their pruning groups but as
you have experienced, that is not always necessary in order to achieve good
results. We do intend to keep the vines up in the ‘canopy of the trees’ as much
as possible so the really hard pruning will be minimal.'