Clematis

Caz8

I have a clematis which is in flower now large purple flowers,  it must be 6-7 years old.  My problem is 

1.  It always gets covered in black fly

2.  The leaves have started going brown and crispy from the bottom up.

Please can anyone put me right, what am I doing wrong?

chicky

Caz, for the blackfly I would try setting up a bird feeder near by so that the blue tits can have a go at cleaning up.  The brown crispy leaves could be lack of water, or just the plant ageing as it progresses through the year - especially with all the heat we are having.

Fairygirl

I've got quite a lot of brown leaves too and the plants are fine and healthy otherwise - it's probably the excessive heat and a bit of normal shedding as chicky says. I try and shade the bottoms of the plants with other planting or by moving pots in front of them. Some of my clematis are in pots themselves so I  make sure they don't go short of water and food as they're greedy plants.