CLEMATIS-HOW TO PLANT AND PRUNE

Evening Star, Issue 22637, 1 May 1937, Page 24

CLEMATIS-HOW TO PLANT AND PRUNE

Clematis, in many charming varieties, are indispensable climbing plants for walls, fences, or pergolas, and are particularly useful in an enclosed garden which gets little or no sun, and in which the soil is cool and moist. Most growers cultivate their plants for sale iu pots. This means that clematis may be planted throughout the year, but September is the best time to do this. While clematis thrive in most deeply dug soils, they are essentially limeloving plants, and the roots do very well in cool, moist soil, with plenty of old mortar and brick rubble, or ff chalk, and -leafmould. When choosing positions for the plants avoid hot, dry, sandy ground. These are ideal climbers for west and north or north-east walls, and will thrive on a south wall if the ground and the base of the plant, near the ground, are shaded from bright sunlight. To the novice it may seem unnecessary to cut down to within Ift of the ground a strong 3ft-hsgh plant of clematis Jackmanni just purchased from a nursery, but unless pruning is done when it is young it will increase rapidly iu height by growing only at the top. The stem soon becomes bare and hard at the bottom, with flowers in season only towards the top. It is useless cut-

ting down a plant when- the wood is three or four years old; it is much more likely to die than develop new shoots from the old wood. i"

The amount of pruning differs according to the section to which the variety belongs, indicated in the following notes on varieties of the type* named;—

Jackmanii.—Comtesse de Bouchard, carmine rose; Gypsy Queen, purple; Jackmanii, purple; Jackmanni alba, white; and the President, plum purple. Large blooms are freely borne on the new shoots from July to October (January to April in New Zealand), Cut back fairly hard the previous year’* growths early in February. Lanuginosa.—Beauty of Worcester, blue; Blue Gem, sky blue; Henryi, white; Lady Northcliffe, lavender; Nellie Moser, mauve, pink bars ;and William Kennett, mauve. Large flowers are borne from June to September. In February , cut out weak wood and remove thin ends of shoots. .

Florida.—Belle of Woking, silvery mauve; Duchess of Edinburgh, and Lucie Lemoine, double white. Large double’ blooms appear in June and July. Cut off old flowers and remove thin twigs as soon as flowering is over. Patens.—Lady Londesborough, sil-very-grey; Lasurstern, deep bine. Large blooms are borne in May and June. Cut away old flowers and weak twigs as soon as blooms fade. viticella.—Ascotiensis, azure blue; Madame Grange, crimson-purple; Villa de Lyon, carmine-crimson. Quantities of small flowers are obtained from July to October. Prune hard each year early in February. Clematis montana, white, and C. m, nibens, rose-red, grow 20ft to 30ft on more high. The flowers appear in May. Cut away old flowering snoots early in June, and tie in all the new shoots a* they grow in summer, as these produce the flowers the following May. 0. Flammula, a free-growing kind,10ft to 15ft or more high, produces numerous small white fragrant flowers from August to October. Prune the growth well back each year early in February.— * Florist.’