http://www.westvalleyrose.org/roseinfo/climbersinthelandscape.html

What not to do: plant 3 jackmani about 5 feet apart, and intersperse 3 climbing roses, and plant them on the protected, east side of the house. Thats just too many plants. The clematis completely overwhelm the roses. And yea, its a hassle to prune out the clematis in the spring - not too bad, just cut all the vines horizontally every 3 feet going up.

It works better to separate out the plants a bit....on the corner of a building, put the rose on one side, say 3 feet from the corner, and the clematis on the other, 3 feet from the corner. I have one where the Zephren D. is absolutely huge, and the double blue clematis barely shows.

Clematis do very well here.

the Jackmanni's are huge, one plant covering an area 10 feet high by 6 feet wide. Hard to argue with, and great on their own, they bloom for me all of June and half of July. Just not something to mix too close to a climbing rose. I have shrub roses planted in front of these, and they look great.

Thanks again,
Skybird

I have two clematis jackmani, nothing else in the yard in the way of anything clematis exotic just this very common, lovely old variety. I LIKE them. Even right now, the seed heads have produced charming vines. But, in a few weeks, the plants will be covered with dead leaves and the "droopy" nature of the growth on the trellises will become apparent.

The sparrows try to do their part. The vines are favorite hideouts for the birds thru the Winter. After a month or so, they will have beaten off the dead leaves.

I followed one of the links to the "Home of Clematis" and a page with nearly 900 words on pruning!! Now, I know why my eyes glaze over every time I look up the information. The only understandable and encouraging words I read were, ". . . if all varieties were left unpruned they would all flower very well." Please, just tell me how can I improve the looks of the vines during the long months of Winter!!

digitS'

Below is a link to another good clematis site. I have it on the Jackmanii page. Look down to the pruning info for Jackmanii, and you'll see it's in group 3. Now if you go up and click on the pruning link you'll get to this information:

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Group 3
This group contains all the late flowering species and hybrids. Although these varieties will flower if left unpruned, they will soon become bare at the base and flowers will be produced well above head-height. This is ideal when growing clematis into a tree, but for general use hard pruning is recommended. Each February, prune all stems back to approximately 30cm (12") from ground level, cutting just above an old leaf joint. New growth will soon appear, resulting in a plant which is green from top to bottom and with flowers at a more acceptable height.
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If you have other clematis and don't want to take the time to look up which group they're in, the best general rule of thumb---and it usually works---is to prune them right after they finish blooming (kind of like you prune blooming shrubs if you're not sure exactly when's best), and I almost always prune things---everythings!---hard to keep them nice and compact and bushy looking. I just don't like it when things get all sparce and leggy looking!

If you go to the home page, you can go to any variety and look up the specifics, and there's a bunch of other good info here too.

Hope this site helps. At least it's less than 900 words!

Happy pruning,
Skybird

You can whack it back as soon as it gets cold. Which reminds me, every thing you forget to prune back in the fall is called "winter interest" - even if you have to practice saying it seriously.

I'm attempting rooting cuttings of Cezanne, Viennetta, Rooguchi and Olgae. I've got roots on one of them, but don't remember which one. Vienetta will probably die outside this winter because it's not supposed to be hardy here.

While I love my Jackmanii, I don't recommend it for someone unless you have the space for it. It shoots up from the ground to up to 15 feet by July and gets really thick and heavy.

I use the English site linked in the post above (Clematis on the Web) to help me determine what to buy. I prefer group 3 because I like to wack them down in the spring (although Cezanne is a group 2, but it's too good a bloomer to resist). The site lists Ernest Markham as a group 2, but I think it behaves very much like a group 3 and does very well pruned as such. Some clematis don't fit clearly in either group.

I have been frustrated that it only got about five feet tall when I pruned it back like a group three clematis should be, so this year, I pruned it down to about three or three-and-a-half feet high instead of close to the ground. I was happy to see that it still produced a lot of flowers at eye level and grew up on top of the trellis a ways.

From the photo, it looks like the leaves were a little pale, which makes me wonder if it had too much water, but I can't believe it did, since that birch is quite thirsty. It got watered by a pop-up sprinkler three times a week for about 20 minutes each time. Maybe it was getting too much shade from the nearby trees, too.

Maybe it needed better fertilizing? Yeah, that's probably it, since I didn't do all the usual garden care this year, with a lot of time being taken up with our new baby this year. In fact, I may have forgotten to do any fertilizing on the clematis this year. It's all a blur now. :-)

I do have several babies from this clematis, and I'm trying to decide where to put them. I have two that I've grown in small pots this year that came from cuttings last year. I have three more cuttings from last spring sitting in a cup of water, where they sprouted roots. I just take some of the cuttings when I prune it and put them in water and wait a LONG time (half the summer, usually). Out of five cuttings in the water this year, three sprouted roots.

If you ever have to dig one up, the roots are a series of small tubers, the size of a little finger, huge masses of them that store moisture and nutrients.