Clematis Montana

When you move house you inherit much more than a building, you also inherit a garden and all that is within it. We moved house in late November when Autumn was well advanced and most of the plants and shrubs in the garden had died back, shed their leaves, or been pruned. It was difficult to know, or visualise what the garden would look like when Spring arrived.

In March I plucked up the courage to tackle a much neglected Clematis just outside the back door of the house. Tackle is probably the right word. It must have been years since this climber had been pruned – it resembled a tangle of spaghetti. Old dead wood predominated and suffocated the newish growth that was struggling into life. It took me two days of slow deliberate work to cut out the old and tease out and disentangle the newer growth which at one point draped the ground in long slender tendrils. These I re-attached to the trellis, (being as careful as I could not to damage the early signs of life), crossed my fingers and waited.

And to my great surprise and delight we have a beautiful flowering Clematis Montana. A joy to the eyes as the buds have swelled, and now one by one they are opening out into delicate pink flowers.