In article ,
"p.k." writes:
| "H Ryder" wrote in message
| ...
| I've inherited a garden full of old and rampant climbers. Mainly roses,
| what
| looks like evergreen jasmine and clematis. Most of this is very overgrown
| and all tangled together. In particular one patch of jasmine mainly
| consists
| of dead looking huge, think stems which turn out to have green growth at
| teh
| ends. The ends are, in general, not where I want the climber to be. What
| do
| I do? If I just cut jasmine, clematis and roses back to the base will they
| regrow? TIA,
|
| Yes, but..........

Yes, but ....

| You might be better off being more selective :
|
| - take the jasmine right back, it will regroup readily and doing this first
| will let you see more clearly the others

J. nudiflorum certainly reshoots if cut right back, irrespective
of age, but I don't know if all do.

| - then, identify if you can the types of clematis you have, the have
| different preferred pruning regimes, some need to be cut hard back each year
| others trimmed, yet others left alone. All will regroup if cut right back
| but you might miss flowering.

Only SOME clematis will regrow. If they have multiple stems
(e.g. C. alpina), there is no problem. If they have a single one
(e.g. C. armandii), they may die if you do that. That is a good
general rule, incidentally, for deciding whether plants will
respond well to being cut back to ground level.


I agree with your general approach and would add that, if they are
seriously neglected, then they will either respond to cutting back
or are unsalvageable. For example, a really ancient and neglected
C. armandii may as well be grubbed and replaced, as there is nothing
you can do with it. So there is little to lose by cutting back
hard, though propagating them before doing so might be a good idea.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.