Clematis only flowering at top
StrettonFox
Posts: 8
Hi, all, this is my first posting here.
I moved into my present house two years ago and inherited a huge clematis which was planted against a fence but had grown to the top of a conifer about twenty feet tall. It produced masses of white flowers in early June. It had also found its way through my neighbour's shrubs on the other side of the fence. Last year I cut it all down to leave about five thick, woody stems which I fanned out against the fence on a plastic trellis support.
I was hoping for a mass of flowers against the fence this year but all I've got is flowers at the top (and in my neighbour's garden!).
Any advice on how I can get it to smother my fence with flowers? Do I need to prune it right down to almost ground level? Advice on pruning clematis is very confusing. It is in flower now (14th June) if that helps.
Posts
Flowering now indicates a group 2 for pruning which means a light pruning after the first flush of flowers finishes. If you feed it as well, you shoud get a second flush fo flowers later in summer.
However, having said that, I treat all mine as group 3s as their tops tend to get frozen to death in my winters. Every March I prune them back to about 9 inches and give them a generous feed of clematis food followed by several liquid feeds of rose or tomato fertiliser until flowering commences.
Nelly Moser is always first for me and is already in flower with all it stems producing fresh foliage and flowers low down. The others follow in due course. This pruning method also means they don't get too big and there are no bare woody stems.
You could try feeding yours now with both the slow release clematis fertilser and the liquid tomato food to see if it produces new shoots to flower next year. Even if it doesn't it will help grow stronger roots and then you could also try the hard prune and big feed next spring and completely renew your plant. As the new shoots form, train them along horizontal wires attached to your fence at 12 to 18 inch intervals as this encourages extra flowering.
It sounds like one of the C. Montanas - I find that what they tend to do is to run along the trellis top of our fence and flower there making an absolute picture. Whatever I do they don't want to flower lower down, so I let them grow up then train them horizntally along the trellis fence top and plant smaller type clematis to flower lower down.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I've always thought montanas were much earlier and had finished by now but yes, horizontal training and masking the bare stems would work well.
My pink montana is just losing it's petals and the white grandiflora is about a fortnight behind it - they're in quite a shady spot overhung by the ashtrees .
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
My Montana has just started
. In the GW mag jobs to do this month was cutting back montanas. I think I'll have to start reading a month behind
. I like the idea of growing a shorter variety to hide the bare stems Dove.