I find it garish. But the plants are certainly growing well.

UGH! I suspect it's been 'photoshoppetd' a bit too....

Definitely photoshopped.

Nope...

Looks fake. I think it's photoshopped.

It looks gaudy or something. Definitely not appealing in any way.

Too much and too fake.

"ditto" to all of the above.

Annette

LOL. It does look garish but I looked beyond the obvious. That's how I get ideas for the garden.

I thought combining 2 or may 3 colours of the same hue would be a nice garden experiment. I've been thinking of combining perhaps a 2 different pinks with another climber of a different plant.

Take a look at this example

Here is a link that might be useful: clematis mix

Now that's a really pretty combination.

Annette

Yep, I like #2 as well. I wish my poor clem was doing better. After many years trying to grow it up a trellis that I attached to a no parking sign in the strip out front, I may try again with a different one or two. It blooms, but never became a lush think plant. :( I don't have Woody's touch, alas.

Ditto what everyone else has said on both pics. I bought one bare root 'Nelly Moser' 19 years ago and it got about 1' tall and died. I've never tried to grow clematis again. I think it's about time I give it another chance.

If you look at both pictures again you will note that it isn't so much that the colors are so garish in the first-the combinations of the intensity is wrong. In the first it is the light pink (Nelly Moser?) that throws the whole combination off. When using intense colors, everything has to be intense. The idea works well in the second picture because they used similar intensity of color, not just the colors they used.
I always found Clematis to be quite fussy about PH of the soil, more so then any other plants. They also like their roots cool so planting something at the base of them or covering with a rock or pot worked well for me in my (then) hot, humid summers.

Well to me that's what garish is all about. Loud and wrong colours combined. Frankly, I don't think it was photoshopped, but I can be wrong. The contrast was just so strong that you might as well hung a neon sign in front of that house. And really combining colours shouldn't be too hard.

My clematis combination:

Left side of bench has clematis roguchi and sieboldii. {{gwi:666149}}From Clematis

Right side of bench has clematis venosa violacea and betty corning. Betty is wonderfully fragrant and when sitting on this bench you can just drink it in. {{gwi:666150}}From Clematis
{{gwi:666151}}From Clematis

Wow gottagarden spectacular job! Just beautiful! Rena'

gottagarden Now that combo is very pretty. And I love the bench in there. Beautiful setting

Now there's a sweet combo. BTW - I also note that your grey/black chair provided a good backdrop to make your clematis stand out.