You Say CLEM-a-tis, I say clem-AH-tis

Actually, I prefer CLEM-a-tis, and I've also seen cle-may-tis listed as an acceptable pronunciation. Whatever your preference, it is currently clematis season around here, and having just come in from trimming part of my miles-long hedge (seems that way, anyway), a good part of this chore having included a wrestling match with this pretty-yet-pervasive vine, I do have mixed feelings about the stuff.

But rather than blather on, I will offer a short verse written by my dear mother, as good a summary of clematis as any (and I see by the accent that she penned in above the first syllable in her manuscript - typed on onion skin with her black Royal typewriter - that I must have learned my pronunciation from her).This is one of the shortest of the couple of dozen or so poems my mother wrote, and will surely not be the last we see of her poetry in these pages. The photos were taken today, for the occasion - in between climbing up and down staging and yanking my arm out trying to keep the trimmer going, thanks to a bad mix of gas, methinks.

   Clematis foams over old fences, 

Creeps over crumbling stone walls,

Drifts over everything in its path.

  

Alison Boylston Piazza

I think this clematis vine is the only thing holding my garage up at this point.