Must be a "your zone will vary" thing. Here in Zone 5 we have no problem with it. We grow ours over a pergola to add to the shade. Other clematis will not grow fast enough to do that. The flowers all face up, though. But my daughter, whose room is over the pergola, has the view in the daytime and the scent at night (which she likes). We donÂt find the scent heavy: not like oriental lilies, for example. But the reactions to scents are so individual. Twice now it has been killed by rabbits gnawing the bark over the winter, and both times we went right out and bought another one. But itÂs not easy to find around here, and expensive too. Maybe you who want to get rid of it should put out little bunny placements and table settings to invite them to dineÂI wonder if thereÂs rabbit attractant you could spray on it, LOL.

Considering its a clematis suitable for winter zones as well as the warmer ones and can expect to be hit by snow, I cant see why it cant be cut back --at least somewhat--to prevent heavy snow bringing it down. So, go ahead cut it back as you wish as long as you feel lthe plant has hardened off for winter. But as you said its still has buds and last remnants of flowers, I'd wait until after a hard frost before cutting it back.

Tom I had it my garden for awhile, it has a haunting hawthorn like scent. I gave mine to my neighbor and planted C. tangutica in it's place, you know, the one with the lovely silver seed heads. Where I didn't find the sweet autumn to be overly aggressive here, but then, we do have cooler summer weather than some/most and I hear it blooms better in warmer climes so it might also grow more vigorously. It's another story with tangutica. I left it two years without cutting it back, it was magnificent with loads of yellow lantern shaped flowers and silver seed heads on at the same time, this one blooms all summer here. The next spring I kid you not when I cut it back...two truckloads to the landfill. Lesson learned each spring it will get wacked to the ground. A lot of the montanas are scented my wilsonii (Chocolate scented) some of the pinks like rubens and Elizabeth smell like vanilla. The montanas are blooming here now, the sweet autumn is much later, neither are repeat bloomers, O.K. the montanas do throw the odd flower later in the season but nothing to write home about. Annette

It won't grow up the chimney without help :-) Clematis are true viners and need something small/narrow that they can wind around to help support themselves, so unless you have netting or a trellis in place, you don't need to worry about it climbing higher than you can reach. I grew SAC for years in my old garden but cut it back each winter to a manageable size.......just to the top of an old iron screen that was its major support. During the growing season it would expand exponentially, consuming a lot of fence, a large deciduous shrub and climbing into a nearby apple tree. Once cut back, it was quite simple to remove the excess vinage. btw, the vine is incorrectly identified as Clematis paniculata in the above link. SAC is correctly Clematis terniflora. C. paniculata is a very tender (not winter hardy) species that is seldom seen outside of its native NZ - C. terniflora is Asian in origin. I have a tendency to be very skeptical of information provided by any website that cannot correctly identify the plant it is referring to...........