Clematis viticella Welcome Home

A robust and reliable viticella clematis, Welcome Home (‘Zo24025’) produces dark violet, anemone-centred flowers all summer long, which are more robust than those of many large-flowered varieties. They bloom from June to September on the current year's shoots, which simplifies their care: a short pruning in late winter is sufficient. Vigorous without being invasive, it climbs trellises, arches, and fences and also adapts well to container cultivation. Derived from the Italian Clematis, it is perfectly hardy, undemanding with regard to soil, and disease-resistant.

Belonging to the Ranunculaceae family, this Welcome Home variety is part of the viticella clematis group. The protected cultivar ‘Zo24025’, marketed as Welcome Home, was developed by Dutch nurseryman J. van Zoest (Boskoop) and presented among the 2024 novelties. It is distinguished by its fleshy flowers, whose dark violet tepals surround a densely packed centre of light-coloured petaloids or staminodia; this structure, combined with reported male and female sterility by the breeder, prolongs the flower's display and limits fruit set.

This is a flexible, climbing plant that attaches itself via its leaf petioles. In the ground, it reaches between 2 m and 3 m in height; in a pot 40 cm in diameter or larger, expect 1.50 m to 2 m with support.
The flowers measure 5 to 8 cm in diameter, opening into a flattened cup composed of 6 to 8 thick, velvety, purple-violet tepals with a slightly lighter reverse; the centre is formed of numerous paler staminodia, sometimes tinged with cream, surrounding reduced stamens. Flowering occurs from June to September, peaking in July, on the current year's shoots. The foliage is deciduous, absent in winter; the leaves are compound with 3 ovate to lanceolate, 5 to 10 cm long, bright green leaflets, with a fairly fine texture. The plant tolerates −20 °C in well-drained soil.

Train this Welcome Home variety on a trellis, an arch or through a spring-flowering shrub, exposing its vegetation to the sun but shading its base. It will cover a fence or a climbing rose within two seasons; in a pot, provide a deep container, sturdy support, and regular watering and feeding. Pair it with the variety Purpurea Plena Elegans; both will climb the vigorous shrub rose ‘Sally Holmes’ and mingle with the purple foliage of Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’. A few clumps of hardy geraniums will protect its base from the sun.

The species, C. viticella, is native to southern Europe and western Asia, from the Italian Peninsula and the Balkans to Turkey, the Caucasus, and northern Iran, where it climbs in open thickets and woodland edges. The species name viticella derives from the Latin vitis ("vine") with a diminutive meaning "little vine", alluding to its climbing stems equipped with twining petioles. This wildling was one of the first clematis cultivated in Northern Europe during the Renaissance; introduced to England as early as the 16th century, it has served as a parent for many modern hybrids renowned for being less susceptible to wilting.