Albertine & Montana

The clematis Montana and rosa Albertine stand out from the fence rather too much, inhibiting the plants underneath. There’s another piece of rope holding things back, and I’ll keep an eye on things.

Clematis montana

These continue to do very well. It’s quite hard to determine peak flower time, but it must be close. Each flower of the pink one hardly smells at all, but there are so many of them there is definitly a hint of something slightly sweet and toffeeish in the air. Marshmallow?

The white one at the back had originally found its way almost to the eaves, but the top wire broke in the high winds. It’s now been replaced with something thicker.

Both plants will need to be cut back, probably with shears, or the hedge trimmer, when they’ve finished flowering.

Summer jasmine

This continues to be extremely vigorous on the N fence at the back. I have to give it quite a severe trim 2 or 3 times a year. In spite of this, it has flowered better this year than previously. There remain two mysteries: What sort of growth does it flower on? This year’s? Last year’s? I still can’t work it out. The second problem is how do you tell which way a shoot is growing when all you can see is the middle of a stem and it must be cut out? This applies to the clematis montana as well, but not to the rose, thankfully.

Rosa ‘Albertine’

This is climbing up the ropes to the E wall of the house, although it’s facing strong competition from the clematis montana. Surprisingly, it’s even better on the neighbours’ N side of the fence.

Prune climbers on house

The clematis have just finished flowering. They’ll probably flower again a little. Hopefully they’ll keep out of the eaves until next year.

The wisteria didn’t flower, but if it had, now would be the time to get it out of the eaves.

Clematis from original garden really good

Large flowered clematis from original garden is really good this year. I wonder what variety it is. I need to think about pruning, perhaps after first flowering.