Don’t you just adore those small and medium-flowered summer clematis – they will enchant for weeks and weeks from mid-summer onwards, if you have a good hack at them now. All that mass of tangled brown top-growth can be cut off entirely now, right down to about 1ft off the ground. I know it’s scary but if you leave it on, you will end up with a sad-looking thing with a few flowers poking out at the top, and very untidy legs – and you don’t want that.
So chop it off – if you can cut above a leaf-bud, so much the better, but I don’t bother about that much – put your usual slug and snail deterrent around the remaining stalks, and watch it shoot away like leafy fireworks as the spring wears on.
GARDENING SHORTS
- I have some old clumps of hemerocallis (day lilies) that need lifting and dividing to rejuvenate them. February is a good time to do this – I’ll just chop down into them with a spade and replant the outside bits, as long as the ground isn’t frozen.
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2 replies on “And a final word on clematis”
I thought, there’s three types of clematis – and those that bloom in spring are not to be trimmed? Because all the buds, that develop in late autumn, will otherwise be gone? Only the summer bloomers are supposed to be cut early?
You are quite right, Eva! Elaine here. The old adage goes ‘If it blooms before June, don’t prune’ so don’t cut back any of the spring-flowerering clematis like the Montanas and Armandii etc. – leave them for a tidy-up after they have flowered. The ones to prune hard now are the mid- to late-summer ones like the viticellas, which are actually my absolute favourite!