First they turn yellow, and then they fall off. its slowly working its way up. thought they could be in need of a bit more water, but I don't see any evidence of that. no drooping, no powdery mildew. so now im thinking its may be a deficiency of nutrients in the surrounding soil...? never had this problem with our Superba before. we usually only fertilize once in early spring with alfalfa meal and a good layer of compost. but something is different this year I fear. thoughts...?

I'm lost as well. I'll check mine when the rain ends. It's normal for the oldest leaves to drop first on any plant but I haven't noticed any yellow bottom leaves on any of our Jackmanii clem's.

its a little early for leaves to be dropping anyway, isn't it? especially at the rate that my superba is dropping them...

Yes, I'd say so.

I am glad I ran across this thread because what I have as Superba doesn't look anything like yours Jason. It only has three stems that are very thick and coarse and the leaves are nothing like yours. My leaves are really big and misshapen and very few. I always thought it was an oddball, and now I am sure if it, lol.

Karen - jackmanni superba considered a "group C", so you want to cut it to the ground in early spring- just above a set of buds as they begin to appear, allowing it all spring/early summer to grow new stems and leaves. ours is just beginning to bud out. we always leave about 18 inches of the hardened main stems to deter slugs from eating them... in theory of course. last time we cut one of our "group C's" all the way to the ground the slugs had a field day with it. the new shoots would grown 1/2 inch. they would eat it. grow another 1/2 inch, they eat it. I call it the, "push pop affect". we finally had to dig it up and put in in a pot to protect it a little in order to give the brand new shoots a fighting chance. we have four main stems on ours this year, each about the diameter of a pencil, producing about 18 individual stems. its in its 3rd year and we are very impressed with how its filled out. but for some reason the leaves are turning white and dropping off from the bottom up. the upper leaves are in superb condition however.

Thanks for the help, Jason. Really appreciate it. I am learning so much from all of you that I finally feel like I am getting somewhere with my gardening.

glad to hear im still learning! ha