Uh, oh. Here we go again.
As we walked around our new neighbourhood last week, getting exercise, our bearings, and photos for the blog in a display of stunning efficiency, I found a climbing vine that had gone to seed. It was wrapped along the branches of a mature spruce tree adjacent to a golf-course club house in an area without much sign of careful tending. It looked familiar.
Could it be a clematis? That seemed unlikely. My clematis experience is limited to carefully planned plantings: adjacent to something vertical to cling to, sheltered from cold winds but open to enough sun, and provided with a rock cover to protect the root ball from excessive heat. And yet, this wild-growing vine had produced seed heads similar to my former-backyard clematis.
Google Images confirmed my guess, so I went back the next day to get a better look.
There were a bunch of clematis(es): wound along the spruce’s branches, straggled along an old stump, and slithered through the grass. So much for rigorous planting requirements. Were these by any chance a hardy native clematis, a little less precious in their needs compared to my landscape-centre purchases? That would be cool. Back to the internet.
And the answer is . . . maybe. But they also might be an invasive species, Clematis tangutica. Oh no.
Just from the pictures of their seed heads, I can’t tell the difference between the native species I ought to encourage and the invasive species I ought to eradicate, or try to, anyway. Invasive species are naturally good invaders, remarkably resistant to even blatant discouragement. So, I’ll have to go back in the late spring to check out the flowers.
It’s good to have a hobby, an educational project, and a purpose for a walk, all in one. Talk about your efficiency.
