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Hard pruning
Victoria44
Posts: 22
in Plants
I have an old clematis Montana growing up through a tree. It now has a thick, twisted stem with no flowers and flowers only at the top. Can I hard prune this now and basically start again with it? Also, this enormous viburnum. It has very thick branches and has clearly got too big - I would like to hard prune but would this take ages to recover and look very ugly in the meantime? Both plants are at the front of our house so obvious to all!
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Hi Victoria. You can prune clematis montana after it has finished flowering. The viburnum can be cut back hard and it will recover but if you could just remove a few strategic branches to open up the shrub and cut the other branches to shorten them it shouldn't be too ugly to look at. Next year you can cut the branches to shorten them all.
Funnily enough. I've just done my V. Tinus. Over 1m off the top and a good trim all the way round. It looks pretty awful, but it'll bounce back in no time and I'm sure I'll feel I should have removed more.
Thank you both. Ok - I'll have a go at the Viburnum. Should I cut the Montana down to ground level?
Do you want to get rid of the clematis? If you mean to keep it then you do not need to be so drastic with your pruning. You could take it back to 3-4 feet in height as an extreme measure or 6-8 feet as less extreme. The top of the clematis will be twisted around the tree so you might have a real wrestle to get it out. Good luck