I love a plant with a story. To be honest, almost every plant in my garden has a story - of the person who brought it to me, or of the trip involved in collecting the seed, or some childhood memory. I have a large fragrant evening primrose, for example, that originally came up in a pot that my grandmother gave to my mother. When mom asked what it was, she said cryptically, "something beautiful." To this day we don't know if the primrose was the intended beautiful something, or just an interloper.  Once or twice I've almost lost it, but always managed to find a plant, either from friends with whom I shared the plant or by making a pass by an old gardening site. Once I searched through turf for half an hour to find two seedlings that had come up in the former-garden-now-lawn in the house where I'd lived. It's just part of the family now.

 But some plants come with their own stories. One such plant is my absolute favorite clematis, "Betty Corning." I first learned of this plant from an old Seattle gardening friend, Steve Antonow, who also told me its story.

The real Elizabeth (Betty) Corning was the wife of Erastus Corning II, mayor of Albany NY. Incidentally his father, Erastus Corning I, was a New York businessman after whom the city of Corning, NY was named. In that city was the Corning Glassware Company, which first manufactured Corningware - now known as Corelle Livingware.

In addition to being an aristocrat, Betty Corning was a passionate gardener, and it was once said jokingly of her that she cared more for her seedlings than for her children. One day Mrs. Corning was walking through a steelworkers' neighborhood, and saw a clematis that was completely unknown to her. It was truly outstanding; an extremely vigorous vine with pagoda-shaped, fragrant lavender flowers. She knocked on the door and asked about it; the lady of the house said she'd received it from an aunt, "rooted in a potato." The last detail is rather unlikely, but whatever its origins, Betty asked if she could take a cutting. The lady obliged, and Betty nurtured the cutting and began to propagate it. Several years later when she was in the same area again, she went back to ask for some more cuttings, only to find that the entire neighborhood had been razed for new development. So if Betty Corning had not taken her initial cutting, it would have been irretrievably lost.

My Betty Corning is in her second year. They say about Clematis, "The first year they weep, the second year the creep, the third year they leap." Thankfully I was able to avoid the weeping stage, but last year I got just one stem about a meter and a half long, which gave me a total of three or four flowers. This year she is definitely leaping, with three strong stems (there was another one but well, the snails have to eat too...), enough branches to cover most of a 6-foot trellis and at least 50 flowers on the way. Still, when you compare it with the true hulk that this plant can become, it might still be creeping in a relative sort of way.

I last saw Steven Antonow in 2002 when I was back for the Northwest Flower and Garden show, and immediately realized he was not well. He passed away less than a year later from cancer of the pancreas. Not only has he left his own name on a plant, Melianthus "Antonow's Blue," but he has become inextricably linked in my mind with Betty Corning as well. May they both rest in peace.