I would NOT root prune your clematis..it is better to dig up and transplant to a more suitable location..you could kill your clematis by root pruning it..to leave in it's place you can prune the vines to shape it..being a pruning group 3 it loves to be hard prune...prune to shape and keep in bounds or relocated or give it a new trellis to fit its mature size...Jeanne

I wouldn't root prune her either. You can hack off any offending growth.

I know a Tom who lives in Wilsonville, that I sold Clematis to years ago. Do you have wisteria too???

The Duchess was pruned (to the ground) of a third of this spring's sprouts (there were about sixty to eighty) and another third "pinched" at six feet later in the spring. I use Steve Solomon's organic fert recipe on my plants and reduced the cottonseed meal (nitrogen source) by half in her ration.

I have no where in my garden to move this monster, if root pruning is going to kill it---and I'd like some more input on this---then I guess I'll just dig it up and trash it.

There must (of course) be another Tom in Wilsonville as I don't have a Wisteria. I'd be pleased to meet you though, as I've read many of your posts on this forum. How would you like a really healthy Duchess of Albany???

I didn't think "my" Tom was computer literate LOL. Hey, I just remembered another Tom that I knew in Wilsonville. Do you have prematurely silver hair and blue eyes? I worked in Wilsonville for almost nine years. I know there are about fifteen thousand people in Wilsonville now and I'm sure there are loads of Toms. :)

I thank you for the offer but I have no room for the Duchess. I've got about sixty Clems crowded on to my tiny lot in SE PDX already. I'm giving some away myself. Her cousin Princess Diana is one I've just dug up and haven't decided whether to keep or not. She mildews really badly for me.

I've never tried dividing a clematis myself, but my sister has one (group II, large bluish flower, but can't remember the name) that she has split up several times. She just takes a sharp shovel and slices off a chunk from the side (she doesn't dig the whole thing up), then fills in the hole beside the mother plant with compost or soil. Of course, she cuts back the part that she removes. The mother plant doesn't seem to skip a beat. At least this would reduce the size of the root ball, thus sending up fewer stems next spring.
Judith

I just divided Durandii by accident trying to dig it up to move it. Both sections are now growing in the pots I dumped them.

I don't think taking chunks out of the rootball will control the size though. Clems tend to grow really well here, bigger than published sizes.

I have the same situation with Duchess of Albany. I had deeply amended the soil and the thing has grown like crazy, it's now probably about 12' high and still throwing all sorts of new vines, at this rate it will obviously be flowering away till hard frost. Next spring, I will limit the number of stems, though I'm sure that these will just branch out and again produce tons of new vines. If I can't tame the beast, then I'm gonna have to replace it with a less vigorous variety ... maybe, Princess Diana ... well, I hope she's less aggressive.

Oretom, my sister had given her Ville de Lyon a real root pruning this spring. The plant has been kept within a large container and become a solid mass of roots. I had advised her it's probably not the best idea to be slicing away at the roots, though she went ahead with doing so. She then moved the plant to a slightly larger contaniner and although it has not grown as large and lush as usual, it certainly does not appear to have suffered too terribly much.

Terry

Thanks for the feed back all, I posted a photo to the Hortiplex section just for fun, BTW.

I should root prune just as an experiment, but I have a C. 'Jackmanii' I think might do well where the Duchess is...maybe I'll just move that and off the Duchess.

As noted above, we do sometimes suffer from overgrowth hereabouts.