The ultımate wall flowers!

Springflowering clematis are some of the loveliest climbers you can grow – and they’ll bring a bare wall to life. Plant them now, says Monty Don

AFTER you have lived in the same house for many years, objects and even pieces of furniture become jumbled in a swirl of time. You remember that there was a ball of string in the right-hand drawer of the kitchen dresser, go to look for it and then remember that you actually last saw it there four years ago.

So it is in the garden. For years April was marked by the appearance of half a dozen clematis including some of the loveliest climbers you can grow. But about a year ago I realised that not one of them was still there. I have dozens of mid-season and late-flowering clematis, all a joy in their season, but not one of them begins to flower before middle to late May. April has become a clematis-free zone.

So this year I have started to correct that by planting the two April-flowering clematis, ‘Lemon Beauty’ and ‘White Columbine’. They are small now but will grow to spread over an east-facing brick wall that had been hidden by a holly hedge. ‘Lemon Beauty’ is a species from C. koreana which is very similar to the better known C. alpina, with the same bell-shaped ‘goat’s ears’ flowers, but the flowers are slightly larger and appear a little later than the alpinas. ‘White Columbine’ is a C. alpina with pure white petals and fluffy alpina seed heads like green sea anemones that follow the flowers.

Both these clematis are charming and retain their delicacy despite a mass of flowers. They are also ideal for the rather shady, cold, east-facing wall and a more sunny spot would be too hot for them. In fact, many clematis are very happy in a shady position and their flowers will last longer and stay more vibrant if they are not exposed to too much sun.

Clematis alpina is completely untroubled by any amount of cold weather, coming, as the name indicates, from the alps. We had a pair of C. alpina ‘Frances Rivis’ (Blue Giant) growing up wigwams in the Jewel Garden. For a few years they liked this and flowered in a spectacular cone of delicate blue. But the woody stems inside the framework got bigger and denser and the hazel rods got more and more rotten and they blew over in a storm and killed the clematis. The two I have planted against the wall will at least not get blown over.

Clematis macropetala is another of my favourites, its shredded petals adding a delicacy that the alpinas lack although it is also very hardy and will flower happily in almost any situation. I had a pair growing in the cottage garden but these two have been flowering only in my memory for the past five years or so and I must order and plant some more.

When planting any clematis, dig a deep hole and add plenty of compost or manure before planting on top of that. This will then give the roots a deep, loose run that will hold water. Plant all clematis an inch or two deeper than the soil level of the pot they came in so that if you are struck with clematis blight and the plant wilts, it can regrow from below the soil level. However the early ones rarely suffer from this.

The time to prune any early-flowering clematis is immediately after they flower to allow as long as possible for the summer’s growth that bears next year’s crop of flowers to ripen. Pruning after mid-summer will result in no long-term damage but will mean fewer flowers – or even none at all – the following spring. The easiest way to prune most of these rather sprawling early flowerers is with a pair of garden shears, cutting to size rather than to any particular horticultural plan so you are constraining the plant rather than training it.