Forum home› Plants
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Type 1 Clematis Armandii Advice

Alfie_Alfie_ Posts: 456
edited February 2023 in Plants
Hi,

I have quite a long armandii growing on the front of the house. I’m having an issue with the leaves. I would say 2/3 roughly are healthy and 1/3 are not. There are several thoughts I had to the cause:

1) we had some landscaping done over the summer and they put Cotswold buff stones around the base. I have a feeling these can turn the soil alkaline as they are lime based. There is a skimmia japonica in the same spot and all its leaves have dropped and it looks terrible. I have removed them all and mulched it now:



2) The boiler flue exits just above where it is trained onto the wall so if the wind is blowing into the house the flue gases may be damaging them:



It could just be that maybe it is missing some key nutrient it needs? I gave it a tomato feed last weekend since it flowers soon. In fact the buds next to the warm flue pipe are already in flower. 

Here are some pictures of the leaves where you can see majority are healthy: 



A third of them roughly are like this:



Do I just remove all the ones like this? If so, should I wait until it has flowered as it is in bud and flowers soon? 

Thanks for any advice offered!

Posts

  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,445
    I wouldn't have thought lime would trouble Clematis though Skimmias won't like it much. This is my main gripe with C. armandii, huge growth, way up a tree then great lumps die off and I can't reach. I wouldn't do anything til after flowering. I cut mine right down to the base, it shot up again and is now repeating its crimes


    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • Alfie_Alfie_ Posts: 456
    Thanks @nutcutlet. Sounds like it’s normal then. Mine is trained horizontally from one end of the house all the across to the other. So guess I will be getting the step ladder out soon 😂 
  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    @Alfie_, that's one of the drawbacks to Armandii, it hangs onto its old leaves and they don't drop off. I just cut off the dead ones I can reach on mine and leave the others.
    They are pretty tough beasts but the flowers/perfume  are to die for.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • Alfie_Alfie_ Posts: 456
    @Lizzie27- thanks that’s good to know. Yeh the scent is unreal 😄
  • bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,697
    Ours last year did the same but came back to produce the best flowering we have had in years. As others have said the scent is amazing and so worth growing. It is trying now to climb up one of our magnolias and we have decided (at the moment) to let it do it as this will give us more evergreen foliage and flowers before the magnolias do flower.
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited February 2023
    I had a large Clematis armandii trained over my back door.. I love the scent and like the leaves when young.  But in the end, apart from a LOT of yearly attention,  it became a mess.  It, regretfully had to go.

    BTW, the scent wasn't free and my nose couldn't reach.

    If I were to start again, I would grow two plants trained so as not to inter-tangle, and cut one right back when it got out of control.  They soon regrow.  Actually, two stems would be enough.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Sign In or Register to comment.