A long time ago, I wrote this post about a flowering clematis plant that I tried to make grow and bloom for forever. I wanted one of those explosions of beautiful, purple flowers around the mailbox like so many other people in the neighborhood had.  

I nurtured, fertilized, encouraged, watered and loved that plant for more than a decade and while it never completely died off, and even grew into quite a large vine, it never bloomed more than one or two flowers at a time each year.  Never not once. Sometimes I got maybe a total of six or seven blooms during the season, but they didn't all bloom at the same time.  Instead, one pretty flower would show up, then die a quick death before the next one dared to come out.  So the whole thing always just looked like an errant weed that I was too lazy to pull.

 The day before we moved out of that house, this happened.

I hate you, clematis bush.