Clematis pruning help

Posts

• BobTheGardener Posts: 11,385

  December 2020 edited December 2020

  It looks like an early large-flowered variety and these are classed as Group 2 for pruning.  However, the good news is that you can treat these types as Group 3 and cut right back to about 30cm (just above the lowest pair of buds on each stem) in late February/early March.  It will flower later in the year though if cut back hard like this.

  If you want the early flowers, Group 2 pruning is also done in February goes like this:

  Start at the tip of each stem and follow it back until you come to a strong pair of buds (these will produce the early flowers) that are within the bounds of your trellis framework and cut just above them.  If that stem is still too long and straggly then go back to a lower set of buds.  Do that for every stem.
  

  
  

  A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  

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• Obelixx Posts: 30,090

  December 2020 edited December 2020

  As @BobTheGardener says you can treat a group 2 as a group 3 and that's what I would do with that one given its position between two windows.  Just make sure you give it a generous handful of slow release fertiliser for clematis, roses or tomatoes to encourage it and make sure it doesn't go thirsty in hot and/or dry spells.
  
  You won't get the early flowers followed by a gap and then a second flush in late summer but you will get a later and longer flush all summer.  I always did this with my group 3s in my last garden as they were usually frozen to bits in winter and had no surviving stems from the pervious year to flower in May. 

  Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
  

  "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."

  Plato
  

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• kate1980 Posts: 10

  December 2020

  This is really helpful, thanks both 😊

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