PLANTING AND PRUNING A CLEMATIS
by
Three Dogs in a Garden
(IC: blogger)
A few brief notes on planting Clematis: Clematis don't like to be moved, so choose your site carefully. Soak the plant in a pail of water for 10-15 minutes before planting. Place a generous layer of well-rotted manure or compost at the bottom of your planting hole. The root ball of your clematis should be about 5 cm below ground level. Back fill the hole with soil that has a generous amount of peat moss and/or compost and a few handfuls of bone meal. Water thoroughly and frequently.
Clematis prefer fertile, well-drained alkaline soil. They like a sunny location, but will not tolerate excessively hot environments.
I always have trouble keeping the pruning groups straight, but paying proper attention will give you the best floral display.
Most people think of popular cultivars like 'Jackmanii' when they think of Clematis, but there are actually a wonderful array of colors, flower forms and plant heights to choose from.
Some clematis vines can reach a height of 20-30 feet. All Clematis vines need some form of support. With this shorter cultivar Clematis vine, a tomato cage has been used to keep it upright.
This is Clematis 'Betty Corning'. It has nodding mauve flowers and blooms for 6 weeks or more. It can reach a height of 8 feet. Hardy to USDA Zone 4. Pruning Group C.
Look for this newer cultivar called 'Sweet Summer Love' at your local nursery this spring. Unlike many clematis it is supposedly fragrant. Its small flowers open deep red in July and mature into a purple-violet color. This clematis can reach to 12 ft. Pruning Group C. Hardy to USDA Zone 5.
This is one of the shorter cultivars of Clematis growing in my front garden. This is Clematis 'Bourbon'. It reaches a height of 6-8 ft. Pruning Group C. Hardy to USDA Zone 4.
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Published April 22nd, 2014 2:36 PM
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Anne Martin on Apr 24, 2014I have had mine for about four years, it is hard to manage. It is real bushy and I have a trelis behind it for it to climb but it is so bushy I can't get it to climb properly. I am not sure which group mine is. It looks like it is dead all winter and then in the spring it gets full of new growth and blooms like crazy. Can you tell me which group it is in? It blooms almost all summer.
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Maureen Nussbeck on Apr 24, 2014@Anne Martin you can cut it down in the fall and it will come back in the spring. That way you don't have all that nasty old dead wood. They are a hard plant to kill :)
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Three Dogs in a Garden on Apr 24, 2014@Anne Martin It sounds like your clematis is Group B. (From your description, I am assuming that most of the new growth is not at ground level each spring.) It would be best then to prune it after it finishes flowering. Remove weak stems at that point. Direct and space the remaining stems to allow next year's mass of blooms to open pleasingly. You can completely rejuvenate your Group B clematis by severely cutting back old growth after it finishes flowering. It will take at least a year however for it to recover. If you do this separate and direct the new shoots or they will soon become a tangled mess.
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Maureen Nussbeck on Apr 25, 2014@Three Dogs in a Garden it is like right now I have shoots on all mine about 2-3 ft high. They will eventually get up to 8-10ft and 3-4 ft wide and I train them as they grow on a trellis. I love them!!!
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A nursery had clematis in 8- 10 inch pots across the top . Can I plant the whole pot in the ground by cutting the bottom out or do I need to take it out of the pot it seems that it would really disturb the plant to take it out of the plastic pot.