How To Grow...Winter-​Flowering Clematis

Let these climbers put on a show during the darker months.

- Anne Swithinbank

ANYONE interested in collecting a group of plants guaranteed to provide interest all year round couldn’t go far wrong with a selection of clematis.

Most gardeners are familiar with spring-flowering kinds like pretty Clematis alpina and rampaging C. montata whose sheets of blooms will cover walls, sheds and pergolas.

Cultivars with large summer flowers are highly prized and followed by the vigorous and reliable Jackmanii and viticella varieties. Late summer also brings the nodding flowers of ‘lemon peel’ clematis, whose fuzzy seedheads persist well into autumn.