We are still buzzing from a great trip this week to the
Clematis pruning
We thoroughly enjoyed talking to Andy Jeanes of Guernsey Clematis (owned by the famous Raymond Evison) again about the new varieties launching in 2026. He is a fount of knowledge about the care of these plants, and so it was a real fillip to hear him say that every one of the recent Evison breed of clematis just need to be cut down to 1ft (30cm) (6”, 15 cm for the shorter patio ones) in late winter/early spring. Because it’s what I do with ALL my summer-flowering clematis these days (like C. ‘Etoile Violette’ in this week’s feature photo) and it really is easy.
I release all that mass of tangled brown top-growth from its supports. Then I grab a handful and just chop it off. I know it feels brutal but if all those stems are left on, the result is usually a sad-looking thing with a few flowers poking out at the top, and very untidy legs – never a good look. The purist advice is to cut each stem above a leaf-bud, but in my experience, you do NOT have to bother with that. I’ve got so many, all that faff would take me days to do anyway!
Then it just remains to sprinkle some slow-release fertiliser round the base and spread a cosy mulch to keep moisture and shade round the roots.
A few more clematis thoughts: :
a. Winter and spring flowering kinds need just a bit of tidying up after flowering, unless they have gone truly bonkers – if they have, they can generally take a hard prune but they may take a couple of years to recover fully. Again, do that after flowering.
b. Always plant out a new clematis at least 2” (5-8 cms) below where it was in the pot. Roots in the shade, head in the sun if you can manage it. It’s easier to keep the new shoots away from molluscs that way too!
c. Clematis prefer neutral or slightly alkaline soil, so if your patch is more acidic than that, growing clematis in pots of general-purpose peat-free compost would be a better choice for you.
Winter jasmine
Don’t put those secateurs away yet! Do you grow Jasminum nudiflorum, that bright, cheery plant covered in starry yellow flowers in spells through the winter? Then you probably know that it can become horribly straggly if it’s left to its own devices with masses of twiggy bare stems and dead branches.
The thing to remember is that it flowers on the previous year’s growth, so definitely the best time to prune it is NOW, as it is finishing its flowering for this year. This is what to do:
- Chop back those long unbranched stems that are springing up, right back to side shoots i.e. take out the top ‘apical’ bud to encourage it to send out lots of ‘lateral growth’.
- Thin out all the stems growing in the wrong place (crossed, crowded or that just look feeble etc.) – it’s a tough plant, so there’s no need to be namby-pamby about it.
- Haul up any remaining trailing shoots and tie them in, or they’ll root where they touch the ground.
If it’s a total overgrown mess, or outgrown its space, I suggest you chop the whole lot down to 2′ (60cm.) Let the best shoots form the new framework. You’ll miss a proper flowering for 2-3 years, but it’ll be worth it not to see that depressing eyesore taunting you all summer for the sake of its winter cheer
Yummy pea shoots
I do like to get some early peas going inside, in February and early March. For delicious pea shoots in a spring salad, it’s a piece of cake, honestly.
Soak some seeds (they’re only dried peas really) in lukewarm water overnight then push them densely into trays of seed compost a couple of inches down (5cm), water them and keep them on a bright windowsill to sprout. You’ll be harvesting them in about three weeks! Get the children or grandchildren to have a go – actually, you just need a few yoghurt-pots with a hole in the bottom for drainage – they could have a competition!
If you are planning to move them outside in April for a proper pea harvest, sow them more thinly in deeper pots, WoolPots, root-trainers or toilet roll tubes or even guttering. This is because they can be very grumpy about having their roots disturbed when it comes time to move them.
Laura’s video about sweet peas on our YouTube channel reminds me to tell you that you can also check if your pea seeds are viable by putting them on wet kitchen paper inside an ice-cream container or a plastic bag for several days. Put the lid on just slightly ajar and put the box in a warm place. You’ll only sow the ones that are beginning to sprout after 3-5 days but do be awfully careful with those very delicate white roots that are emerging – tweezers are a good plan.
Gardening shorts
- Like everyone, I have my planterly passions, but I’m afraid heathers aren’t one of them. It might be because I’ve never had the right soil to grow them properly, though I can appreciate a Scottish hillside ablaze with colour as much as anyone, of course. If they do float your boat, remember to cut them back as the flowers fade. . Just make sure you still have some leaves lower down on each shoot you cut, and the plant will be encouraged to bush out more from the base.
Oh boy, have the snowdrops loved all the wet this winter! Such a pretty sight, close-up or en masse.
If you want to make your drifts of these pretty harbingers of spring even greater, dig up the clumps once they have finished flowering but are still above ground, split them into smaller groups of 5-8 bulbs and plant them where you want them, at the same depth as they were before. The nurserymans’ jargon for this is moving them ‘in the green’, which is usually a more reliable method of propagation than from dry bulbs.
- Do you fancy a useful inside job instead? Spread some newspaper over the kitchen table, assemble all the
garden tools that you cut with – secateurs, shears, hoes etc. and sharpen them up for the season ahead using a sharpening steel. Blunt blades can bruise plants and leave nasty snags, which make them more liable to get infections. And you have to exert more effort to use them which is dangerous – and more exhausting!
There is NOTHING quite like the exquisite scent of a daphne at this time of year – but if you consider them too slow-growing, Louise has news for you, and she’s picked this one to be one of her Great Plants this Month
Laura has written a report about our fab trip to the Garden Press Event at the Business Design Centre in Islington this week. Find out what we got up to and which were our favourite 10 new products!
Our trip is also recorded in the short video below (click on the image to watch)
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