I planted my clematis Montana a few yrs ago but it’s never really got going? This is it as of a few weeks ago. What’s the best care regime to get this fully blossoming?
Give it a good feed of slwo release clematis, rose or tomato fertiliser and a tonic of liquid feed now. Do not prune till after flowering as it flowers on old wood.
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)."
I would cut back any shoots that are thin, weak looking to a bud or leaf cluster as there will be leaves on after flowering.
On your images the very thin wispy bits that do not look to have any leaf buds or green on cut them back to the first bud nearest to the main stem. They are not going to do a lot.
If you like go carefully and cut back one node at a time and see if there is a green centre to the stems.
But anything thin cut back to your thickest horizontal stems they will all shoot away with some feed.
There is a but here. You have done a nice job of tying in the shoots horizontally. But I would cut them all or most back to the main stem to persuade it to shoot from nearer the base.
Take courage in hand , the one with secateurs in , and it will make it shoot away and you will get more stems to tie in lower down.
Good Luck. Also in the future you may need to either take it in hand each year and cut back harder or move it. Montanas do get big once they get going. And your fence and trellis might not take the weight.
I agree re the trellis . Might as well change that now. If the fence is sturdy, you can use wire and vine eyes. I've done that with montanas in the past - I had one at the back door in a previous garden, so some of it was arranged round that, and some stems trained along a fairly low fence, to the back gate, and up over a small pergola type entrance there. You can certainly take off anything weak and spindly. It's also worth making sure the soil is in reasonable condition for it - some mulching now and again, but they can also take a few years to get going. They'll grow in quite poor, drier conditions too. If it's not thriving, and it does look like a pretty weak specimen, it may simply have been quite pot bound to start with - or one of those 'teabag' plants*, which are dreadful for things like clematis. I've lost several because of that, and only discovered they were grown that way after they'd failed.
* cuttings/slips are often started off in little mesh bags [hence teabag] which are then just moved on into a bigger pot as they grow. Some manage to get their roots out well enough, and some don't.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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On your images the very thin wispy bits that do not look to have any leaf buds or green on cut them back to the first bud nearest to the main stem.
They are not going to do a lot.
If you like go carefully and cut back one node at a time and see if there is a green centre to the stems.
But anything thin cut back to your thickest horizontal stems they will all shoot away with some feed.
There is a but here.
You have done a nice job of tying in the shoots horizontally. But I would cut them all or most back to the main stem to persuade it to shoot from nearer the base.
Take courage in hand , the one with secateurs in ,
Good Luck.
Also in the future you may need to either take it in hand each year and cut back harder or move it.
Montanas do get big once they get going.
And your fence and trellis might not take the weight.
You can certainly take off anything weak and spindly.
It's also worth making sure the soil is in reasonable condition for it - some mulching now and again, but they can also take a few years to get going. They'll grow in quite poor, drier conditions too.
If it's not thriving, and it does look like a pretty weak specimen, it may simply have been quite pot bound to start with - or one of those 'teabag' plants*, which are dreadful for things like clematis. I've lost several because of that, and only discovered they were grown that way after they'd failed.
* cuttings/slips are often started off in little mesh bags [hence teabag] which are then just moved on into a bigger pot as they grow. Some manage to get their roots out well enough, and some don't.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...