Pruning a Spring Flowering Clematis

I have been wanting to prune this clematis for years. I kept putting it off as I was convinced I would kill it.

As you can see around 90% is old dead wood and it looks a total mess. I took a deep breath and decided to go for it.

Let be totally upfront this is not a post how to prune this Clematis but what I decided to do to mine as it was mainly dead.

It was not an easy job, I was having to trace dead wood back and make sure what I cut did not have new growth on it. New growth can come from what looks like dead wood so tracing backing carefully is important. A lot of the wood just fell away. Slowly and carefully I made my way through the jungle of crossing branches and stems.

I did have a few casualties which I knew would happen. It occurred near the end when I must have lost concentration for a moment.

This is what we are left with. My husband is going to help me with creating a better system of wire for it to grow around but not yet as we want to see how it does after such a hard cut.

I gave it a good feed on the day and then will once a month continue to feed it.

So far it is still alive and looks happy. I hope this will give the plant a new lease of life.

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