How to prune clematis plants

Question

I have clematis plants in my garden. I am wondering when I should prune these (i.e. how often) and what does the process involve?

Lorcan · Answer

Seek garden centre advice best place that can help

Callum · Answer

Prune your large flowering clematis during the spring, when the plant is still dormant. Remove any damaged, dead or weak stems, cutting back to a pair of healthy buds. Avoid heavy pruning at this stage as you may get less early flowers.

Mark · Answer

It will depend on the type of clematis and the time of year that it flowers.  Generally, clematis can be divided into three groups.  Group 1 are large hybrids that flower in summer, such as  Nelly Moser.  Prune these in February to the lowest viable pair of buds.  Group 2 flower on growth made in the previous year and include species such as clematis Montana.  Prune these after flowering.  It can be done with shears to keep the plant in check.  Group 3 are late summer flowering cultivars, such as the beautiful clematis viticella and clematis alpine, which should be cut back to ground level.  There’s a brilliant section in pruning clematis in Christopher Lloyds book The Well-Tempered Garden or from the RHS website.

Archie · Answer

Prune during spring just remove the damaged or dead stems

Laurenc · Answer

Flowering before early summer (June), do not prune, and
Flowering from late June onwards, prune in late winter (February)

Roger · Answer

Hi, best option is to google it and check out the RHS site on the issue as will be cheaper.

Robert · Answer

Vigorous clematis are pruned rather differently to the less vigorous and pruning is quite often specific to the actual variety you have

How to prune clematis plants

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