Another plant that I am having to learn a bit about is clematis. There are lots in this garden and they keep popping up in places where I haven't noticed them before. My main worry has been when to prune them and so I've been trying to learn which pruning groups they belong to. The group ones don't need pruning so I will forget about those for now.
The big showy types seem to be in group two. This one is something similar to 'Nelly Moser' and flowered quite early.
Then there is 'Josephine' my absolute favourite.
These are the ones that you prune lightly in February from the top down to a pair of healthy buds. However these also seem to be the ones that are all straggly and have a lot of dead wood so I am tempted to follow the RHS advice that says that you can hard prune them every 3-4 years by cutting them right back to 1-3ft from the base.
Then there are the group threes which seem fairly indestructible. These are the ones you cut back hard every February. I have one that has appeared scrambling up through a shrub that I have yet to photograph and this one that is so vigorous I'm wondering whether I can just divide it in the spring when it starts putting up its many shoots as it is outgrowing its space.
I also have this one that I'm not sure which group it goes into.
I'm fairly sure the flowers were all on new growth from this year but it did flower quite early so I'm a bit confused. It looks a bit like 'Jackmanii' and apparently you can treat those either as group two or three depending on how you want them to grow. I guess if I wanted it to scramble up through the tree I could leave it or if I wanted it to stay covering the trunk I will have to prune it quite hard.
I'm presuming that anything that flowers from now on is going to be a group three. I still have one that has buds but no flowers yet. I also have to keep my eye out for any more that pop up! My next step is to try to propagate some. Wish me luck!
