Oops, I forgot to post the link for 'Clematis on the Web'.
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Here is a link that might be useful: Clematis on the Web

I think you are probably correct Suzy...I am lucky to live in a warmer zone and can get so many bloom periods out of mine by treating them like type 3s...I will only be doing that until they reach their 3rd year in my garden and then attempt to treat them like 2s..I think colder zone don't have enough growing season for that method to work....thanks for sharing for findings it's the only way we can learn.....Jeanne

Thanks for the info Suzy. That is good to know. I do live in a warmer zone(8) and my type 2 have always bloomed when hard pruned. I am sure gardeners in colder climates will appreciate the info. By the way my Huldine is finally starting to bloom. I had just about given up on it. Hopefully it will live up to its great reputation for me and be a great bloomer. Karen

I can add to that but I have different info for different plants with a different twist.

I was forced to prune The President as a 3 to keep the painters from stepping all over everything this spring while the house and trellises were being painted. On the same wall was Hagley Hybrid and Jackmanii. I thought all the stepping around really messed them up. The 3 of them took forever to poke through after the painters and snow were finaly long gone end of April (they were suppposed to be gone by the end of March, but too much late snow and rain and cold made everything behind schedule. )

Eventually they showed up, and now they are all at their peak (somewhat reduced) and I was thinking that it was nice to have the delay. Now that the clematis season is winding down (boo-hoo very very sad...), those three are shining stars looking fresh as could be.

I was even wondering if I could orchestrate timing a bit by some pruning manipulation in future years, but thats another subject...

I also pruned Rouge Cardinal as Group 3, and it did well. Although not a good experiment because it is still young. I don't know its potential yet.

Else Spath was pruned as Group 3 also for painting purposes and I didn't get the nice early large flush, but rather a slow and steady show.

Niobe was cut to the ground and didn't miss a beat. But my notes say that is a 2 or a 3 so I guess that doesn't count.

So I guess overall my results echo Suzy's generally, but not as dramatically.

I also prune year 2 Group 2's as 3's as that is recommended to help young plants form more shoots, but I imagine the debate excluded that. I actually have a code in my pruning log for that: "P3" means pruned a group 2 as a group 3, anal logger that I am... :-)

Interesting. I'm a chicken, and really don't have a lot of hope for further growth in my zone 5 garden. I pruned about 1/3 from the top on my Asao after its best season of bloom ever, hoping for a second bloom. There is very little growth above the prune line. A couple of stray vines went up the arbor about 3 feet, but that's it. The other side of the arbor has a younger Asao that I left alone. It has two blooms on it today as high up as the stray vines on the other side. I'm not sure if I can ever prune after bloom again. I'm a lousy pruner, and it shows. I still say that an instructional video would be a great idea, Suzy.

pruning for rebloom works for my Ms. Bateman. After it blooms, I cut it down to 6". I knew it was going to be a mess, I figured I would just skip the messy part. In the past I just tidy up and tidy up and tidy up.. I eventually get reblooming but its a pain and some yucky leaves always persist and I am always afraid I am cutting off potential blooms. This way cutting it down to the ground gets fresh foliage that is now 4-5' already. I am positive it will rebloom by September or so.

This may not work with all varieties. Ms. Bateman is an early bloomer for me.

Let us know Wendy ! Second prunings sometimes work on the very early bloomers in colder zones and I have had mixed results, but it's always worth a try.
However, here, we are talking about a hard prune at the very BEGINNING of the season. I wonder what would happen if you hard pruned your Miss Bateman when you prune your group 3's in the late winter ? Want to try it and report back ? I tried it with only two of my group 2's, as I didn't want to risk the entire lot of them. You are in a similar cold zone.

I hope you are really enjoying that new house of yours ! Lucky ducky, you !
Suzy

My Clematis "Miss Bateman" is new in my Garden this year and has done nothing but put on beautiful foliage...My understanding is that it's a late bloomer...is that true?..Can I still anticipate blooms later on?..Thanks...Jeanne

Mother nature prunes everything down to the ground for me in my zone 3 garden. I have a few group 2s. Elsa Spath, Sunset, H F Young, and Royal Velvet bloom beautifully for me, and before the group threes start which is nice. Dawn also blooms very early, but so far only about 5 flowers down low on new wood. It is three years old. I have posted a picture on the gallery of Sunset and Elsa Spath blooming with Huldine. I have mostly group three's because I have believed that I had to stick with them because of the natural prunning. But this year I have started to rethink this because I enjoy the earlier blooming on the few group twos that I have. Have I just been lucky with the twos that I happen to have?

Jeanne, it took my Miss Bateman 6 years to establish, but this year it was beautiful. It's in a rather shady location, though. I love the huge leaves which are a very shiny, dark green. The flowers are also huge.

Ritainminnesota, group 2's can sometimes be a bit of a problem in zone 3. Stem die back is prevalent in severe cold, however, my older plants seem to do much better than the younger plants and you may find that it's worth planting them and waiting. I would. I have some that seem very hardy and a few others that don't. It's hit or miss, but I too enjoy the flowers and couldn't be without them. I have an Ivan Olsson, a gorgeous white with blue edges which has been blooming since early June, non-stop. It sure makes me smile when I walk past it!
Suzy

Wendy,

I have Rouge Cardinal and I thought it WAS a group 3 ?? Am I wrong ?? It's my first year with it and i don't want to screw it up.

Blackie

Hi Wendy,

I was going to ask about your painting work with scaffoldling and how it went. Sounds like it was ok.

Suzy,

interesting results and thxs for giving up 2 clems for an experiment.

Thanks for the information. It is difficult for us with another two months of summer to understand its ending for other parts of the country. Our ability to benefit from this long summer is dependent on having a water supply as we will have no rain during this period. Al

Blackie, so it is...Thanks. I have it listed wrong on my chart.

Suzy, Good memory. They promised scaffolding (and is one reason why I picked them), but they did not come through. They did temporary ladder to ladder scaffolding from time to time, but there was still constant ladders in and out of all the beds. The tri-clematis wall was the tightest space and got the most damage, but I'm hoping the plants will be back to normal next year. They also stepped on an emerging martagon lily that suffered a lot. And some emerging hosta tips got bent resulting in torn foliage. And this was with them being extra careful where they stepped due to the obsessive gardener/homeowner in their midsts! If we could have done it in March as planned, it would have been fine.

The timing was super close. Mounting the painted trellises back up on the wall was the very last step. Niobe was growing in leaps and bounds those last few days. The bottom of the trellis was covered in Niobe as soon as it was mounted.

The bad part about the painting job is that they might have to come back in the fall to redo some spots that the primer did not adhere to well and got some blistering. I think I would rather take the risk of the paint peeling than have to deal with painters again :-)

Thanks for the info Suzy. I have been reading a book called "Gardening with Clematis" by Linda Beutler and she mentioned experimenting with pruning, stating that if you hard prune group 2's down right after it's first blooming, (like a group 3) that it will emerge and produce a second set of abundant blooms. Being completely new to pruning I was wondering about this also. It is obvious that she lives in a much warmer zone and I wondered if this makes much of a difference so thanks for mentioning this to us. I remember your nelly moser. It was covered in blooms. It's a good thing that you have so many other clematis but I hope it makes a good recovery for next year.

Gardenerboo, I haven't yet read Linda Beutler's book, but the pruning suggestions she gives ( a HARD prune after blooming), simply couldn't apply to the colder zones. It doesn't work in my zone and would certainly not work in even colder zones.
I have heard that Linda's book is fabulous, but I think that here she may be referring to warmer zones. I will get the book and read it shortly.

Suzy

I usually frequent the far north forum, but as my collection of clematis increase, I am finding interesting information here.

Wendy, so glad to hear that Niobe cut to the ground didn't miss a beat.

I planted one last night, the tag said "pruning group B or C". The thing is, here in zone 3, sometimes mother nature does the pruning for us but winter killing the plant to ground level.

This works great for ones like Jackmanii, the roots send up new shoots in spring and it quickly recovers the trellis. For this reason I usually look for pruning group C only, but thought I would take a chance with Niobe as the tag said either B or C.

So, when cut to the ground did Niobe bloom at the same time or later than ones like Jackmanii? Was it loaded with blooms?

Regards,
Glen

I have an autographed copy of Linda Beutler's book "Gardening with Clematis"
I believe she lives in Oregon..In her book she speaks of experimenting with hard pruning group 2s'(She is talking about doing this after the first bloom period..not late fall) she mentions zone 7(So I am to assume she is in Zone 7?)..some clematis in her book that she has experiment with hard pruning after their first bloom cycle with great results is W.E Gladstone,Vino, Sunset,President, Lasurstern,Fujimusume,Peveril Pearl,Silver Moon and Corona.. and I quote "These plants are suppose to bloom best on older stems, but when there is only new wood, which has ripened during the height of the growing season miracles become regularly occurring events." She said the blooms will be back in September as large as they were in Spring...I agree with Suzy..One must have a longer growing season to see this happen..I also, have a thought of mind that is."If one isn't getting plenty of vines emerging from the soil to satisfy themselves that hard pruning in late fall can help to accomplish this"..what say you?...Jeanne

Niobe cut to the ground was blooming June 9. I'm not sure whats "normal" for it. The previous year, I had it out of the ground in a container while some grading work was being done. Most likely I cut it down prior to digging it out. That year it bloomed May 28. The year before it was late showing up (mother nature pruned it to the ground) and didn't bloom until July. I have no records before that.

I usually get some rebloom around October which is a real treat.

And my Ms. Bateman is starting up her 2nd bloom after being cut down completely a month ago.

I think there could be height issues though with pruning early, though. I know Niobe is not real tall, but this seems too short. The new growth after bloom usually gets it to the top of the trellis.

{{gwi:611368}}

Thank you for all the interesting posts. Although I am in a warmer zone is is very useful to know what might and might not work. My clematis were all new this year (first time for years I've had a garden) so I cut them all (except armandii as it might have possibly bloomed) back hard. None of these came to any harm from being cut back hard at that point. In fact I'm strugling to keep some of them in the confines of my own garden. On someones advice possibly you Suzy I've cut back niobe again in the hope I might get a few more blooms this year and it's got some lovely fresh growth as a result. As there is still a bit of a state of flux in the garden I will probably have to cut most of them back quite hard this year as well as I will be moving them around in the spring but fortunately it sounds like year 2 would be a good time for another hard prune anyway.

Niobe
Arabella
SAC
Jingle bells
Winter Beauty
Alpina Burford White
These were hard pruned.

In fact thinking about it these two which weren't hard cut back are not doing quite so well.
Elsa Spath (appears to be being eaten by something)
Mrs Cholomondley (prone to wilt)