A Merry Little Clematis

This clematis may have a festive name, but its background is more sun-baked. Toby contemplates a Christmas miracle

- Toby

JINGLE bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! A carol as Christmassy as Michael Bublé drinking eggnog from a Champagne saucer while riding a reindeer. Wrong! Jingle Bells isn’t a song about Christmas at all…

When composer James Lord Pierpont penned the ditty in 1857, his aim was to capture the high-octane après-race antics of sleigh racers. That’s why the verses (which have been politely dropped from the festive version) refer to crashes, taking out girls, helpful tips on acceptable race times, and the fastest horses – ‘Bobtailed bays’, in case you were wondering.

Aptly, the fabulous winter-flowering Clematis cirrhosa ‘Jingle Bells’ is also not as Christmassy as it seems. Its flowers might be green and white like mistletoe, and chime with the festive season, but it’s a tourist to our shores that’s happiest in its native home on the islands and sun-baked slopes of the Mediterranean.