Clematis Montana Wilt
Flossie B
Posts: 2
My Clematis Montana was in full bud, then suddenly it just wilted, at the base of the plant it appears to be weeping. Has anyone any idea what has caused this and is this the end for my Clematis or if I cut it down will it come back next year?
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I had it happen to my Niobe this year but only at the tip of one set of shoots.. I removed all those shoots back to the base and fingers crossed its ok..
I did give it a thicker compost mulch at the same time just to be sure its nice and cool down below. Its now shooting and climbing like a trooper.
Sounds more like mechanical damage than anything else. Something has damaged the stem at the base, either molluscs, or lawn mower or some such thing. The stem then leaks sap and dies back to the point of damage. They usually shoot from below the damage if they were planted deeply enough in the first place. Takes a while to get back to full size though.
Thanks for the information, would not have been lawn mower damage but I did wonder if something had damaged it like the visiting fox landing on it as he comes over the fence! I will cut it back and cross my fingers.
Molluscs do tend to rasp away at the stems and can devastate even an established Clematis. One of ours was damaged by the cat using it as a claw sharpening post.
One thing though is that it definitely is NOT Honey fungus. The yellow stuff is the sap from the Clematis itself. You would see a lot of other problems if it was Honey fungus.
From what I know about clematis, so long as it's planted to a good depth of about a foot, then they're pretty tough. Even when clematis wilt looks like it's killed it, it only goes down to just below soil level, so you get new shoots after.