At this time of year, the clematis are growing as if their lives depended on it.  Well, I suppose they do – they have to get tall enough to get their heads  in the sun before their flowers form.

Believe it or not, I tied in this clematis yesterday and it has grown 6 inches in 24 hours.  So the lesson is that for the next few weeks, check and tie in your clematis every day. 

This is all the more important when you garden with dogs as the stems are very vulnerable to canine paws and the last thing you want is to have the stems snapped off before they reach their prime by a passing dog.  It may be a chore, but just think of how you would feel if you lost a number of those beautiful blooms for the year.  Just a few minutes now will be worth hours of pleasure in the months to come.

I use soft green twine to tie the clematis into their support and make sure that the string isn’t too tight so that in the days to some I can tuck in the stems that have had a little further to come to reach that height.  This is something that you have to be careful about doing though as I have occasionally asked a stem to bend a little more than it wanted to do and it has broken.  This year, I promise to my clematis that I won’t be too mean in my use of string and use more if necessary to allow all my stems to grow to their full height :).

It really is worth the time to sort out those rampant clematis – why not check yours now?