By Jagienka
Galway,
Ireland 
IS it too late to prune Group2 clematis?
I've completely forgotten about pruning one of the Clematis (President) plants. It's not yet fully established, only bought and planted last spring. It has a few long and thin woody branches with few side shoots, two new shoots coming out from the root ball but a lot of activity is happening waaay on the top (and above the eye sight).
Can I prune it to encourage branching out or should I rather wait for the first flowers to go and then prune? Or not prune at all until winter and just let it grow whichever way it wants to keep it happy?
14 Apr, 2014
Answers
Oh good, so no major damage done (not yet, anyways).
I think I'll leave it alone for now, I don't mind if all the flowers are sitting on top of the garden wall, as long as there are some ;)
Or as the clematis is climbing on a net with plenty of support for the new tendrils I may just help the new, bendy branches to do the U-turn and grow a bit downwards instead of up-.
Thanks for your help!
14 Apr, 2014
The President, and others in this group, are actually best with no pruning; they flower twice, late spring with large flowers and again end of summer with smaller flowers.
If yours is spindly, it won't do any harm to cut it down - this will encourage new growth from the base, but if you do it now, you will lose the large flowers which are about to arrive, though you will still get the smaller flowers later on. If you do cut it down, give it a good feed - Miracle Gro or Growmore (assuming its in the ground).
14 Apr, 2014