By Gooseygander
Essex,
United Kingdom 
Clematis Chevalier
I planted a Clematis Chevalier earlier this year and it seemed to be growing reasonably well and forming flowers. These flowers hadn't opened and when I came back from a week long holiday it looked very sick indeed and all the leaves have gone crusty and dry. It doesn't seem to be wilting and given the amount of rain we've had I didn't think it would be lack of water. Before all the rain i was giving it a reasonable amount of water and then the rain took over. Any ideas what could be wrong with it? There is another clematis ("magenta" i think) right next to it and it seems to be ok at the moment.
26 Jul, 2012
Answers
Remove the dead stems, back to the ground if necessary. If it suffered an attack of wilt (and it might have done) it should regrow next year, so leave the roots in place.
26 Jul, 2012
Thanks for your help. Is there any way of preventing clematis wilt? Will the clematis next to it be ok?
26 Jul, 2012
No, there's no way of preventing it, some hybrids are more prone than others to getting it, but all the hybrids are susceptible. The only thing you can do is to keep a close watch - if you see a stem wilt from the top down, clip it out at the base immediately. All very well, but sometimes we go away, lol! The recommendation to plant clematis 2 inches deeper than it was in the pot, or to plant it on its side, is just in order to persuade the roots to put out more shoots so that, if wilt occurs, then hopefully all the shoots won't be affected.
26 Jul, 2012
It looks as if its quite dead. Try cutting lengths off from the top, if you come across any of the stem that has a look of life in it then I would give it a good drenching, if there isn't then I would say its died of Clematis wilt.
26 Jul, 2012