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Unknown clematis -- pruning and training

18 years ago

Afternoon! Last summer, I got a piece of clematis that someone basically ripped out of the ground for me and threw into a pot. Amazingly, the thing lived. It's lucky, because I was too busy/lazy to trim its brown stem back over the winter, not understanding that new growth would come from that stem as well as from the base. At any rate, it's growing like crazy and I'm full of ideas as to where it can go. But I have no idea how big it will be because I don't know what kind it is. And I've never grown a clematis before, so I've got lots of questions.

1) I have it planted now at my foundation and I have a rather small trellis that I will use to encourage it up to the top of my porch. How do I get it from the ground up to the trellis, though? The trellis is perhaps 5 feet above where the plant is now. New growth is just laying on the ground.

2) Once it gets to the top of the trellis, can I use wire or line or something to train it along the top of my porch? And over my garage? Can it grow sideways wherever I want it to go? And I must admit I'm a bit afraid that it will try to get up under my roofing shingles or siding. Are they aggressive like that?

3) Lastly, how do I know what type this is? I have no idea when or if it should be pruned.

Any pointers would be appreciated. I don't even know what color this thing is going to be!

Karen

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unknown clematis - to prune or not to prune?
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Comments (2)
Looks like Jackmanii to me. I would prune it like a type 3. I prune back to 2 leaf nodes late winter each year. You may get other opinions but that bloom doesn't look like any type 2 clematis I know of.
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Prairemoon, It was a lot easier to move than I expected. Of course,there were a lot of roots left behind because there were a lot of roots that were close to the surface that had spread far from the plant. I moved it before it was tall enough to attach to the arbor, so I didn't have to cut it back. I think I only slowed the growth down by a couple of weeks. I mixed compost into the soil and either bone meal or rose tone, and I also used rooting hormone. Mine blooms in late August or September, and for that reason, I moved the SAC from the arbor because it was in a prominent spot. I wanted to see color in the summer, not a tunnel of green, although it was nice to stand under the arbor feeling enveloped by the lushness. I moved the SAC to a corner where I am going to try to get it to climb into a tree. I'm not sure how well it will flower because there might be too much shade. If that doesn't work, I'll probably move it so it can climb along the fence. Your wire idea is a good one. I think I will do the same at some point.
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Comments (1)
It sounds like you probably aren't seeing blooms because they aren't getting enough sun. I'd consider planting them on the sunny side of the wall and give them a trellis to climb so that you can see them from the terrace. If that isn't possible, find another spot with at least 6 hours of sun - most of them are by preference full sun plants IME. When you move them prune them back to just a few pairs of buds per stem, and plant deeply enough so you have 4-6" of soil over the main growth point where all the stems are based. It's late in the year to be pruning back since they might try to put out new growth, so I would wait until next spring to move them. Once they start blooming on a regular basis you can use the bloom season to figure out how to prune them.
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Yes you can. I did this as well and it looked fantastic. Unfortunately, my armandii was in a pot, a half wind barrel, and after 5 years it outgrew the barrel and I had to get rid of it since I did not have a place to plant in the ground.. You have probably already noticed the shoots break fairly easily but this clematis is such a vigorous grower it doesn't seem to be much of a problem. I did not prune mine I just let it go... the deer did some pruning for me. Wonderful vine... I miss it.
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