My grandma taught my Mom who repeated it to me, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!" and... "If you look hard enough, you can find some good in every one." My Grandma (her pet name for me was "Obbie"...for some reason, I didn't pronouce "Grandma" and "Awe-bee" was the name she answered to when I was a small child. Even her neighbors & lots of friends called her "Obbie" throughout the years of my growing up. She was a "hired girl" on farms when she was a teenager...she was married and divorced at a young age...she was widowed after another marriage to my grandpa of 26 yrs...she worked in a bakery, she operated a cafe, she ironed clothes in her home for other families...she was always a HARD worker!...she passed that on to her 3 daughters & family. Here are some of my precious memories of my Grandma, Obbie that I wrote back in 1984 for a genealogy book my Mom created: In the back yard, Obbie had lots of flower gardens. I once found the cactus garden with my bare feet when I jumped a fence playing (where I shouldn't have been)! There were also lots of sour grapes, good ripe strawbeeries and lots of green apples. We were never without homegrown food at Obbie's. And, oh, that homemade jar of strawberry jam. Of course, inside the house, there were always homemade chocolate chip cookies. And on Sundays, the smell of Obbie frying chicken (that my 'grandpa butchered). Anyone was welcome to show up for Sunday dinner! Obbie taught me a few of the things every woman was supposed to know before growing up. The ol' treadle sewing machine put out lots of doll clothes and pin cushions. Crocheting chain stitches (by the miles). Obbie crocheted each grandchild an afghan for graduation. Never being bored at Obbie's, there were always old catalogs for cutting out paper dolls and clothes. (Ok, Gjers, I could go on & on...but I just want you to know that I was very blessed...I was a "crouper" as a child and finally outgrew it at 12 yrs. old...but my Obbie would always come running when I got sick...with "warm 7-up" and hugs. Anyway, I will end this post with a poem I wrote for this genealogy book (she died when my first grandchild was 4 mos. old): "My grandma, Obbie, always had time for her grandchildren. She was never too busy to forget us. I am the lucky one even to have had Obbie for my grandma... If I can be as strong, as you were strong, If I can give, as you have given, If I can be kind, as you always were kind, If I am loved, as you are loved, If I am cherised, as you are cherished, If I am mourned, as you are mourned, Then I can say..my life is truly blessed. Obbie passed on her love for gardening & flowers to me...as my grandpa did also...and my Dad. Here is a pic that I am so fortunate to have of my Grandma holding me in her backyard...I lived in the same household the first 2 yrs. of my life...and her LOVE shaped my life. Ahhh, pretty sentimental stuff...but I enjoyed all of your sharing and wanted to share a bit of this special lady! Thanks, Jeanne S.

You can prune any clematis once it goes dormant and the weather it going to stay cold until the warmer weather arrives. For me in zone 7a, that is typically in late December/early January. If you get colder sooner and you aren't likely to get warmer weather that might fool the clematis into beginning growth, then you can prune even earlier. I would guess also that in the colder zones, most people wouldn't want to be outside in the frigid temps doing their pruning when the temps are that bad. Hence, that is why so many people wait until the late winter/early spring to do so. Also, if you have type IIs where you are just wanting to remove deadwood, you might want to wait until later so that you can tell what has died back and what is still alive by the dormant buds beginning to swell. Since I treat my type IIs like IIIs, I don't have to worry about discerning what is alive wood versus dead wood. Yep, definitely, the first spring that any clematis is in the ground it doesn't hurt to prune it as a type III (ie prune it back hard)!

Unless you are growing clematis in zones where you have a short growing season or unless you are growing clematis that will only produce double flowers on old wood, then you can treat most of the type IIs as IIIs. If you do this, your type IIs will bloom later in the year than they would have otherwise. Sometimes I treat my type IIs as IIs and sometimes I treat them as IIIs depending on how I am feeling at the time I do the trimming. If you have a gnarly mess of vines on your type IIs, which would make removal of deadwood a real pain, then whack them back to within a couple of inches of the ground. If you have the patience to trim only the dead wood out, then treat them as type IIs. This year all of my type IIs were treated as IIIs since trying to trim only the deadwood out would be a nightmare. Sunset, HF Young, The President, and Niobe are type IIs that have always been treated as type IIIs in my garden.

The typical pruning rules for type II clematis are that they are not pruned back each year and when they are pruned back, it is to remove deadwood and to contain the size of the plant. That being said, clematis of all pruning types benefit from being treated as type III clematis (ie cut back to within several inches of the ground) the first and second years in the ground. This helps the plant get its root system established and causes dormant buds to break on the crown, resulting in more vines coming up out of the ground. That being said, I personally treat my type IIs as type III each and every year. Sometimes they are cut back in the winter when I cut back my type IIIs and other times I wait until midsummer when the vines tend to get brown and crunchy regardless of how much water I give them over the course of the summer. When I trim in midsummer, I typically cut the plants back by half, fertilize them with a slow release fertilizer, and keep them watered. They reward me with another big flush of blooms in the early fall. Another good reason to treat your type IIs as IIIs is that as the type IIs mature, the lower vines tend to get woody, you get less or no leaf growth on them, and you end up with a clematis with what is referred to as 'naked legs.' Treating them as type IIs, either yearly or in alternating years, helps to prevent this condition. Consider the pruning rules for all classes of clematis as basic rules that are not written in stone, but just general guidelines. Here is a picture of Proteus and Piilu that were cut back to within several inches of the ground this past winter and they are both back up to over 5 feet tall and still blooming like mad in my garden. People in colder zones may not be able to get by with treating type IIs as type IIIs since the type IIs bloom on older wood and in the colder zones, the vines may not have enough time to mature to produce the buds for flower production. Those of us in most parts of NC don't have to worry with this. Experimentation with your pruning of any type of clematis in your own garden will let you know what you can get away with and what you can't. The only downside to treating type IIs as type IIIs that I can think of is that some of the double flowering type IIs require both old wood and a winter chill to produce the double flowers. Closeup of double blooms on Proteus. Closer up view of Piilu.