Get clever with clematis: Alan Titchmarsh shares his pruning tips
PRUNING clematis? Follow these simple rules and you won’t go wrong
Nobody could call clematis handsome plants during the winter. My old friend Christopher Lloyd used to refer to them as “disembowelled mattresses” at this time of year. But it is during the next few weeks that you can remove the worst of the stuffing and let them grow away.
And yet many folk are confused by clematis pruning. There are books written about how to prune what and how low down the pruning cuts should be made. As a rule, the later the plant flowers, the harder back it can be pruned, since it will have more time to grow and produce flowering wood.
Let’s talk Clematic montana first. This is the rampant monster that is among the first to flower in May. It needs no regular pruning at all, but when it gets out of hand you can hack it back quite dramatically immediately after it has flowered.
The following year’s show might be slightly reduced, but it will soon be back to full speed and you will have reclaimed some of your garden.
The large-flowered varieties of clematis – the Nelly Moser and Jackmanii – can be pruned at any time over the next few weeks as soon as you see their silky buds emerging. Don’t be too afraid. Cut back all that top growth to strong buds or shoots between waist and chest height.
You can adopt the same system with the yellow-flowered and fluffy-seeded Clematis orientalis and Clematis tangutica, but where these grow over a trellis or arbour you can cut back to any healthy pair of silky buds that are about to grow away, removing the tangle of dead growth beyond them.
The bell-shaped and pixie hat-shaped clematis – Clematis texensis and Clematis viticella – are the easiest of all to cut back. Pruning of these clematis consists quite simply of cutting them right back to ground level now, to flower again in the summer.
With this as your rough guide, you should find clematis pruning much less intimidating, and your plants will not suffer a jot.
Don’t miss Alan’s gardening column in today’s Daily Express. For more information on his range of gardening products, visit alantitchmarsh.com.
