Sweet Autumn Clematis (Clematis terniflora) was introduced as a landscaping plant from Asia in the late 1800s. It is a beautiful vine that flowers profusely late in the season when a lot of other plants have started going dormant. Like a lot of successful landscaping plants, it can become overly aggressive in your yard. It also produces many wind-blown seeds that will start new plants in your neighbor's yard, and beyond. As a very prolific vine, it has the potential to over-top native plants and out-compete them in natural areas. We need to seriously consider the impact of our choices of landscaping material on the greater landscape of our neighborhoods and adjacent areas. Not only does Sweet Autumn Clematis out-compete native vegetation and lower biodiversity in our natural areas, it does so without providing food to our native fauna. We can do better in our choices to landscape our yards.
Oak Haven is a 60-acre private woodland in Southwestern Ohio near Cincinnati. Jim and Julie Varick both have degrees in Botany and over thirty years of experience in managing natural areas. They enjoy sharing their enthusiasm for the natural world and would like to build relationships with like-minded people to share knowledge and resources.
