I have a lot of clematis plants, and before I began keeping good records, I forgot their names and what types they were. So I just let them grow, and they did not do as well as they should have. They had mold and insects because they were too thick and just piled on top of each other. I learned a hard lesson from this: every few years they need to be pruned.
My pruning is not so much cutting them back as cleaning them up. I am very careful not to break the stems because they are very brittle. I very carefully untangle them, cut off all the dead debris, separate all the stems, and put them back on the trellis. It would have been much easier to have done it right in the first place.
There are three groups of clematis:
- Group A includes those that are early flowering, producing flowers on ripened stems from the previous season. So these should be pruned after they bloom.
- Group B includes those that have large flowers produced on new stems which grow from the previous season's ripened stems. These should be pruned in early spring just before the new growth commences.
- Group C includes those that produce flowers on the current season's stems. These should be pruned in early spring 6 to 12 inches above soil level.
Clematis are easy to grow if they have lots of sun and their roots are kept cool. Keep records of what types you have, and they will give you years of enjoyment.
There is an English website with information and photographs for 2,900 clematis varieties at Clematis on the Web. It is well worth your time to look it up.
Joan Cook, Smith County Master Gardener
Texas Cooperative Extension
Annual & Perennial Flowers Index
Gardening Tips For NorthEast Texas Index
East Texas Piney Woods Gardening Home Page