Clematis Dr Ruppel

Dr Ruppel! I am so pleased with you.
You’ve looked so good for a week or two
In fact you’ve made it through
a week of May and half of June
so I think that you will soon
be crooning June’s favourite tune.

Clematis Dr Ruppel

Survival in a Pot

I bought the beautiful Clematis Dr Ruppel on 8th May 2014 to give me some colour on my back wall after my garden revamp. I left it in a pot in case it didn’t like it at the back of the garden, as it is shady there until quite late in the afternoon, facing north-west as it does. It seems to like it, so the next step is to commission a big strong lad to dig me a nice big hole so I can plant it in the ground.

If it flowers every year as long as it has done in 2015, I shall be well pleased. It just seems to go from good to better every week. I think it started budding up well on 2nd May, or at least that was when I took my first photo of it, and by 28th May when I took my next photos it was well in flower, and it just kept getting better and better.

I had a bit of a nasty moment when one day, after it had been quite hot and I had been out all day, I returned to find the flowers wilting. I thought that would be it. However, after a bucket of water tipped into her pot she soon revived and went on to improve. Obviously she is built of stern stuff. I call her she because she is too pretty to have a boy’s name. According to this article though Dr Rupple was a man.

When I first saw Dr Ruppel in my garden centre I thought it looked a bit like Nelly Moser, i.e. Pink and White, but this year, as you can see, the colouring has changed to a vivid magenta, rather than the pale pink that it was when I bought it. Dr Ruppel is truly awesome and I love it.

Clematis Dr Ruppel is a strong contender for my June Plant of the Month award

According to the RHS Dr Ruppel should be pruned in late winter or early spring and trimmed back after flowering in early summer. So we shall see if I get a second flush when I do that (if I remember).

This info I found at http://www.clematis.hull.ac.uk/new-clemdetail.cfm?dbkey=143
Large pink flowers with deep red-pink stripe. Filaments white with cream-beige anthers. Occasional early flowers may be semi-double. Introduced into the U.K. by Jim Fisk in 1975 from plant(s) sent to him from Argentina by Dr Ruppel himself. The variety has received the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit. It flowers May, Jun and Sep, needs light pruning and it should have a sunny aspect.