Just prior to dark this evening, as clouds neared that will bring rain tonight and perhaps a deluge tomorrow, I noticed again that the sweet autumn clematis, which I considered so troublesome in recent years, is missing. Again, I say, since I now recall pulling the dead vine out of the threadbranch cypress some time early in spring. Since, I had not given its loss a moments thought, and even now the details are fuzzy, but early autumn is when the clematis would have flowered if it had not died in the severe winter that killed too many tough and hardy plants, but surprisingly spared many that are more tender.

Though this clematis was lovely in flower and pleasantly fragrant (though I have trouble with any but the strongest scents), the vigorous vine had long fallen from favor as it climbed too far to threaten the cypress. Of course, the cypress has also grown too large, but I considered that if the clematis overwhelmed the cypress its support would be lost, so both cypress and clematis would fail. In this instance of one or the other, the cypress made most sense to keep, though I did not get around to doing anything about the clematis before it was killed in winter.

I intended to prune the clematis to the top of the wrought iron and stone fence, and then to encourage new growth to wind along the fence rather than straying far up into the cypress. Admittedly, it was unlikely that I would keep up with the maintenance to tame the clematis, but this was the idea, which of course I promptly forgot about. Every year when the clematis flowered I was reminded that I had neglected to follow up on these plans, but now there is no need.