Why we love late-flowering clematis
With their diverse range of flower shapes and colours, these are plants that tick all the right boxes – making them worthy of a place on your plot
Keeping a succession of interest and colour going in a garden as it moves through midsummer towards autumn is one of gardening’s biggest challenges.
It’s all too easy for a garden to lose its energy in August, but there are some plants – garden stalwarts – which can be relied upon to deliver the goods. Clematis, known as the queen of the climbers, is one of those, and while many clematis are at their peak early in the year, there’s a fantastic range that are at their best in late summer and autumn.
Some late-flowering hybrids have large, star-shaped flowers, then there’s a range of smaller-flowering species and their varieties, such as C. texensis and C. tangutica, that have dainty bell or tulip-shaped blooms. Some, particularly the tanguticas, produce fabulous silky seed heads as the flowers fade, which add interest in autumn and winter. And there are those that have fragrant flowers like C. flammula, with masses of small, creamywhite, almond-scented flowers, and the unusual C. rehderiana,a vigorous climber that can reach up to 9m (30ft), which has nettle-like foliage and a profusion of sweetlyscented, primrose yellow flowers.
Clematis are mostly known for being climbers, using their leaf stalks to twist around supports so they can scramble skywards, but there are also some less well-known clematis that don’t have tendrils. Instead, these form non-climbing, bushy plants and can be grown alongside other herbaceous perennials; some are self-supporting; others, such as
C. diversifolia ‘Blue River’, will ramble through neighbouring plants. These herbaceous clematis are often scented, C. heracleifolia ‘New Love’, for instance, has blue, tubular flowers that smell like hyacinths, and ‘Edward Pritchard’, which has pretty, slender, white and lavenderblue petals, is said to be one of the most fragrant of all clematis.
Clematis, like other climbers, are great for maximising growing space. With their small ‘rootprint’ they don’t take up much horizontal space and are perfect for covering a wall or fence and trained up obelisks and pergolas, and some are compact enough to grow in pots. Many of the later-flowering clematis are less vigorous than the springflowering montana types so they’re great for small gardens; their more modest growth also makes them suitable for growing through shrubs, particularly ones with a short season of interest such as philadelphus, to maximise the flowery potential of your garden. If you want to give this a go, it’s important to match the vigour of the clematis to the vigour of the host plant – a tall shrub will need a clematis with enough oomph to compete with the shrub’s roots, whereas a shorter shrub, such as a rose, should be paired with a daintier clematis that won’t swamp it.