Clematis 'Jenny' syn 'Jenny Keay' (Montana Group)

Clematis of the Month for November 2025

Described by Linda Beutler

[For this article, we are going to call this clematis, C. 'Jenny Keay', since that was the breeder's intent. See Note at end for the reasons why. —LB]

The sunny side of C. 'Jenny Keay', well blushed, in the Rogerson Clematis Garden

Clematis 'Jenny Keay' was introduced in 1996, but it came across my notice in the very early 2000s, when members of the Pacific Northwest Clematis Society (now the Friends of the Rogerson Clematis Collection) visited Brewster Rogerson's collection, and each of us was given a 1-liter pot of C. 'Jenny Keay' (#1 or 1-gallon in the US) by Gutmann's Nursery, where the collection was housed for 18 years.

Bob Gutmann and Brewster had obtained it from its breeder, Alister Keay, who had named the vine for his wife, Jenny. Bob's wholesale nursery was launching it in the USA as a "dwarf montana", and my specimen, still with me over 20 years later, has stayed 3-4.5 meters tall. In that time, it has been severally pruned twice (always when it is done flowering in June), and I can vouch for it reaching no more than 4.5 meters whenever it must regrow. Given that most other variations, close relatives, and cultivars of Clematis montana reach twice that height without breaking a sweat, and then double it, I suppose the term "dwarf" suits C. 'Jenny Keay' by comparison.

C. 'Jenny Keay' in 2025 has reached the top of the fencing cloth enrobing an arbor post at the Rogerson Clematis Garden. To get it to go higher, more fencing cloth must be added

At the author's garden, Tanglevine Cottage in Sellwood, Oregon, C. 'Jenny Keay' stays fluffy and creamy on the shady side of antique wire fencing

The flowers of C. 'Jenny Keay' most resemble those of C. 'Marjorie', which was a seedling of C. montana var. wilsonii (of hort.). Neither C. 'Jenny Keay' or C. 'Marjorie' are fragrant, and they are both double and pink, but their similarities end there. If a plant of C. 'Jenny Keay' is grown so there are a shady side and a sunny side, the shady side will be creamy, showing little or no pink at all (in the face of such a challenge, C. 'Marjorie' tries to stay pink). The more sun for C. 'Jenny Keay', the more color. The flowers of C. 'Jenny Keay' are generally more double than those of C. 'Marjorie', making a charming blanket of puffs.

The growth habit of C. 'Jenny Keay' is also interesting. Unlike others in its horticultural group, it does not insist on growing relentlessly up. In both my home garden and at the Rogerson Clematis Garden, it gets to about 2 meters tall, then decides it would rather be a haystack (or less charitably, a heap). At both locations I tease out three or four strands and insist they go up, using Velcro® tape to old the stems into their support structure or small tree until they grab hold for themselves.

And that's really the advantage of C. 'Jenny Keay'. Since it reaches only 4.5 meters, one may grow it in a small tree without risking the life of the host. In my garden Magnolia stellata 'King Rose' has been limbed up to make a multi-trunked tree, not much taller than C. 'Jenny Keay'. The clematis is planted to grow on old wire fencing between us and our western neighbor and then trained into the magnolia. Also on the fence is C. 'Vyvyan Pennell', and I quite like the juxtaposition of the big double mauve flowers with the smaller pink or cream pom-poms.

On the shady side of the fence at Tanglevine Cottage, C. 'Jenny Keay' blooms with the double spring flowers of C. 'Vyvyan Pennell'
At Broadfield, all of Alister Keay's hybrids and introductions are grown side-by-side, so this is C. 'Honora' with C. 'Jenny Keay'		The arbor supporting C. 'Jenny Keay' at Flaxmere is only slightly over 2 meters tall, and having reached that height, it turns to drap itself another meter down the inside

Larry Beutler and I took a garden tour the South Island of New Zealand in November 2024 and marveled to see all the Keay introductions at both public and private gardens. The Kiwis are justifiably proud of Alister Keay's breeding work, and at Broadfield Garden outside Rolleston, one may see all his clematis, including those he introduced on behalf of friends and customers who brought him interesting seedlings for evaluation. We also saw C. 'Jenny Keay' at Flaxmere, near Mason's Flat, and Woodend Garden and Vineyard, in the wine country surrounding Blenheim New Zealand (not pictured).

Lastly, if you are desperate to grow a C. montana cultivar in a container, C. 'Jenny Keay' would be the only one I could sincerely recommend. For the container, one would want a half whiskey barrel or vine barrel to provide sufficient root room. Expect that eventually the wood will rot out, and the clematis roots will take off into the soil.

Note:-

The reason we don't call C. 'Jenny' (Keay) C. 'Jenny Keay' is that by the time Alister got around to registering the name in 1998, another clematis had been named, registered, and introduced as C. 'Jenny' by Krister Cedergren in 1991. Alister had mentioned that he was going to name a C. montana cultivar after his wife Jenny in earlier publications and by doing so, he unwittingly affixed C. 'Jenny' to the plant, thus making C. 'Jenny Keay' a disallowed name and forever cementing the confusion into clematis lore. Cedergren's C. 'Jenny' was registered as a late large-flowered hybrid, but it has the buds of a C. viticella cultivar, continuing the puzzlement that appears inherent in the name "Jenny" for clematis.

Linda Beutler, Curator, Rogerson Clematis Garden