As you read this, hundreds of people all over Ireland are doing a spot of autumn planting. And if they're putting in a clematis, chances are that they are earnestly digging little holes with their trowels to receive the new climber. Even before that plant enters the hole, its fate is sealed. Death is a sure thing. Why? The answer is in the trowel. A spade is what is needed - to dig a whopping, great pit to make an acceptable home for a new clematis. These plants are massively hungry individuals and they have a busy, questing root system that feeds their gargantuan appetite.
Nobody knows this better than Pat Dillon of Grove Gardens, near Kells in Co Meath, who grows clematis by the hundred. "If you go to move a clematis, when you dig it out the root is the full of a wheelbarrow," he claims. "A nursery man told me that 95 per cent of clematis that were sold in Ireland died," he says. "People put them in with hand trowels. And they water them with jam jars."
Buckets are what you need to water clematis: three of them a week, according to Pat, to keep a newly planted specimen from dying of thirst. And farmyard manure, heaps and heaps of it. For his own collection of 330 different clematis varieties, Pat uses 400 barrels of well-rotted dung, twice a year. Fortunately, being a farmer, he has a ready supply of the stuff.
And you know how the books advise putting "their feet in the shade and their head in the sun", well, that doesn't mean stuffing them into a dark corner, enjoins Pat. "They love to be out in the open - just keep them mulched well, with peat or farmyard manure."
Like most show-offs, clematis resent competition, unless it's from their own kind, or perhaps roses or the odd shrub: "They don't seem to interfere with each other, but when you put them in with a heap of herbaceous, they don't like it."
Evidence of the efficacy of Pat's methods can be seen at the Grove, where the place is coming down with clematis. Even now there are over 50 varieties still in flower, including some very special large-flowered cultivars, enjoying a second flush after the wet summer: sky-blue `Lord Neville', the purple-stamened `Elijah' and the dark-blue `Edomuraski' from Poland.
Also here is this year's fashion plant: the starry, yellow `Golden Tiara' (which Pat has had for four years); the gorgeous and rare `Sir Trevor Lawrence' with near-metallic cerise flowers; and the tiny, scented Clematis x triternata `Rubromarginata'. The 14-syllable name comes forth in a rich Meath accent, and then, entertained by its weightiness: "such a long name for a small flower! Couldn't they call it `Mary Jones' or `Paddy Murphy' instead?"
And maybe one day there will be a `Pat Dillon' too, for sooner or later, surely, an interesting hybrid seedling will arise here, where clematis clothe walls and fences, twine up poles, ramp through shrubs and twirl around the telephone lines. "My mother said that if you stood still, one would creep up your leg." But why so many? "They do well for me," says Pat. "They're a very helpful plant in the garden: a garden without climbers is like a room without curtains." And also, "I wanted to have the largest collection." So, five years ago, he ordered 500 plants of hundreds of different clematis varieties. It just so happened that there was a drought that summer, and keeping all his new treasures watered was a job made in hell. But persistence paid off, and now he doesn't know of a larger collection in Europe. And being a member of the International Clematis Society, his ear is finely tuned for news of possible rivals.
But Pat Dillon's four-and-a-half acre gardens are not just devoted to this single plant genus. There are roses by the score - over a thousand, in fact - to keep the clematis fragrant company, and swatches of herbaceous plants in particularly meaty combinations. Purple asters, red `Bishop of Llandaff' dahlias and maroon Cosmos atrosanguineus - the chocolate cosmos - are partnered in a full-blooded colour scheme. There are no pastel drifts here, instead, "one thing banging off the next. Plants are not like a shirt and tie - you can't have a pink shirt and a red tie - but it works with plants."
Grove Gardens, Fordstown, Kells, Co Meath, reopen reopens next year on March 17th. Hours: 10 a.m. 6 p.m. daily. Admission £3 for adults, special rates for groups. Enquiries, telephone: 046-34276.
Diary date: Wednesday October 29th, 8 p.m.: Pat Dillon will give an illustrated lecture on "My experience with clematis and roses at the Grove", at Wesley House, Leeson Park, Dublin 6. In association with the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland. Non-members: £4.