Flower Show Is Blooming With Fresh Ideas

By Phran Novelli

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Some of the best things you get at The Flower Show are ideas - such as from the inspiring display of so many 'Cle-MAT-is' (or 'CLEM-ah-tis' as it is perhaps more properly pronounced) by British horticulturalist and exhibitor Raymond Evison, with thousands of blooms here in full flower.

You can grow these prolific flowering vines up a mailbox or a fence post, but Clematis are also happy to clamber up a shrub or tree and here, you'll see the flowers intertwined with conifers so that it looks like the evergreens are flowering.

The effect is magical but it's no trick, you can do this at home! Clematis plants like to have their feet in the shade and their heads in the sun, so planting one beside a shrub that can support it just makes sense; the roots are shaded and the vines scamper up seeking the sun to bloom with your holly, hydrangea, or pine tree as a background.

A woman standing next to me snapped a photo with her cell phone and said, 'I'm definitely going to do this!'

Good idea - and so can you.