Well, now is a great time to plant Clematis, for two reasons, one is your garden center is going to have all those great varieties right now. And two is Clematis take very well when you plant them now. So, when you are in the garden center you probably want to look for what you need in the way of clematis.
Now, there are two basic types although they break them down a little bit more than that, and that is those that flower on new growth, and those that flower on old growth.
Now, what I have here is a clematis Montana’s. Now, it will actually flower on the old growth. So, when you are pruning something like this, what you do is you leave it for about five, or six years. let it grow on, it will flower on the old growth, and then prune it back, clean it up and then have it start all over again.
Some of the other varieties like jackmanii, they are actually going to flower on new growth. So, what you will do is you would prune them back heavily every year and get that nice flowerage on them.
Now, when you are planting clematis, you plant them a little bit different than when you plant normal plants. Now, not that clematis are not normal, but when you go into a garden center they always tell you to plant it at the soil level.
Now, with clematis what you actually want to do is you want to plant it a little bit higher on the stem, maybe actually to this level. We are going to clean off some of this branches and that is because if clematis get what they calla clematis wilt you can prune them back and they will actually shoot from just below the soil level and start all over again.
That way, you have not lost the plant. Now, what we want to pick out is a good sight that we have a nice big hole generally digging it about twice the size of the root system. So, we have gone down about a foot and a half and we have got some good soil here. And, we want to put it in a sight where the roots are going to sheltered and then it gets full sun later on.
Now, in this case you can either plant like we have got a pen stem in here that is going to grow up high and that is going to shelter the root systems. We also have a stair case here so when the sun comes over it is also going to shelter the root systems as well.
So now, I am going to take a little bit of stir manure. Now, clematises are fairly heavy feeder and I am going to stick some stir manure right at the bottom and then I am going to layer over top of that some soil and then I am going to set the clematis right on top.
Now, they are usually not very root bound, so I am going to loose a bit of soil here gently stick it in again moving it down so that I am going to cover up to about this area here. Now, and now there is a bloom here, but I am just going to pull this off because we do not want any of the leaves below the soil level or else we could get some rotting.
Now, I am going to mix in about 10% manure to existing soil and then back fill it again. Now, we have got some good soil here it is nice and airy. So, the roots are going to be able to grow well. Now, from this point I just put it up the trellis, water it. You might want to do a little water soluble fertilizer to get it going and I am going to have a beautiful clematis for years to come.
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