Early blooming clematis are generally left for pruning until after they bloom. However, I find that by then all the new growth makes it very difficult to get at any dead growth and eventually the whole thing becomes an unsightly mess. At the same time, taking out the dead growth, even in early spring is very tricky as the healthy growth is often clinging to the dead stuff and extricating it without damaging it calls for a lot of patience. One of the chief lessons of gardening.
This is a lovely, early bloomer that for many years didn’t do much, but for the last two seasons has gotten more and more prolific. When it wasn’t doing much, I kept waiting for that after period to prune it. But I found that wasn’t working as well as I hoped. So I’ve solved the problem by pruning in very early spring when the new growth is just visible. I’ve also spread out the pruning over a couple of years – taking out dead stems in bits and pieces as they become accessible.
Here’s the base, so you can see just how tangled the whole thing has gotten. This year I decided to really get caught up on the backlog of dead stems; especially since a fellow clematis in this garden got clematis wilt last year (more about that in my next entry). I thought it was important to clear out all the dead wood and leave lots of space for the new growth.
The result, I know, looks very drastic. But now at least I feel confident that the new growth, and especially the flowers will look their best, not at all obscured by the older, dead growth.
I did not shorten any of the healthy stems. This clematis blooms very early and shortening healthy stems would have meant losing bloom for this year. Instead I worked by way down each dead stem, taking the whole thing down from the top, foot by foot. (The usual rule is to prune from the bottom up, but vines are an exception.) This is very slow going, but by being this slow and methodical, I was able to remove the dead growth without damaging the healthy growth.
Here is the base again. A number of healthy stems, but not the tangle it was before. Mind you with older clematis, a certain amount of tangle is to be expected. It’s just that from time to time you need to get rid of all dead and unproductive wood.
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