Redsox, this is generally done when the plants are first planted to allow the roots to get established at the expense of top growth. It can't hurt to treat them as type IIIs and prune them hard even if they are type IIs. I know that BorS that posts here said she had some underperforming type IIs that had been in her garden for several years and they were helped by pruning hard after the fact. You can easily prune them down to two or three sets of buds. I prune all my clematis here in NC in late December/early January and don't have any issues doing so. Once the clematis are dormant, pruning won't cause premature growth especially if the weather is still cold.

So I am just wondering why we would prune in early January (since I am a zone colder maybe that would be February) as opposed to say, early December, when they first go dormant?

What about a clematis that was planted this past Fall, 2009, and is rather small? Would you prune it the same way?

Thank you...

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)!

I just pruned a bunch of mine today. II's and III's.

I have had much better success pruning II's as III's rather than not pruning them at all. Loads more vines and flowers. I pruned all of my I's as III's too but won't do that every year, only until they get more established.

Here in Z:4 I prune my clematis in late October/early November though this year we had a warm early November so didn't get them pruned until late November.

Have just started growing Type IIs so they get pruned like Type IIIs. Later will wait to prune Type IIs in the early spring when see new growth, although I have been told by some that Type IIs die to the ground here. If I find that to be true I will prune them in the fall also.

BorS, it certainly is easier pruning type IIs as IIIs isn't it rather than trying to go out and selectively remove only the dead wood that can be intermixed with all the stuff that is still alive?

This year I decided that I was not going to prune my Piilu and Proteus which are coplanted together as type IIIs to see if I can get doubles on my Piilu. I have had some doubles form on Proteus in the past down low on old wood on the plant and singles higher on new growth but never on Piilu. It's my little experiment to see if I can get doubles on Piilu. If I end up with loads of dead wood intermixed with the stuff that is alive, I will let what will flower to flower and then prune them both back down and get more blooms later in the season.

Good to see that someone in the colder zones is able to prune their clematis at a time of year that is not considered the traditional time mnswgal.

I prune all my type II's as if they were type III's also. It just keeps things simple :-) Some years, I don't prune at all if I am too busy......doesn't seem to make any difference with flowering at all although the vines do not look quite as tidy. But these are only for established vines........newly planted vines all get annual hard pruning for at least the first few seasons in the ground.

BorS, I'm wondering why you elected to prune your type I's now rather than wait until they finished blooming? That's the method I've always followed and it seems to serve the same purpose just as well. And you get to enjoy the flowers first :-)

I have one clematis that I haven't seen bloom yet! It's a Franziska Maria clem. This will be her 3rd season in the ground. Every spring I would prune her down hard as a type 3. No flowers!
So, this year I'm going to try her as a type 2 and only prune dead or broken stems. I may see some blooms yet then!
Yes, I do truly believe that yound clems should be treated as type 3's for the first few years to get them established and to give you more vines. BUT, when I can't get a good response from her, well...

We'll see how it goes. If she still doesn't produce any flower buds then I can try pruning her down later on in the season, or shovel prune her.

The advice to treat type IIs as a type III is usually only advice for the first and perhaps the second year in the ground so that the plant gets its root system established. This is a type II clematis and with you in zone 5, it may be that your growing season is not long enough to allow her to regrow enough old wood to flower if perpetually treated as a type III. Treat her as a type II this year and see what happens. If she doesn't bloom this year when not pruned back hard, I would give her another year in the ground and see what happens. At that point, I would consider her a nonperformer and consider removing her. Of course I am also assuming that this was a decent sized clematis when she was originally planted and that you are not feeding her a diet of quick release nitrogen which is likely to produce a lot of vegetative growth at the expense of flower production.

Most of my Clematis don't make big tangles of vines because they are wimpy scraggly growers.

I keep whacking everything back because they do get bigger after I do it.

I didn't whack my I's yet, I will wait until they are done blooming. I phrased it wrong earlier.