We moved to our present terraced townhouse in autumn 1992. The front of the building was smothered by a huge clematis montana that extended onto our second floor balcony and also onto our neighbours’ balcony to the east. Squirrels lived in it and made dreys there.
In June of the following year it erupted into bloom. It flowers later than the commoner montana sp. It was immediately apparent that the flowers had a very unusual scent – of chocolate. In fact it was almost overwhelming when approaching the front door. This became a much anticipated annual event quite apart from the floral spectacle itself.
Over a decade later, in late June, we were about to drive to Fife to catch the car ferry from Rosyth to Zeebrugge. A classic (for Edinburgh) torrential summer downpour started. I had a quick final look around the house before leaving and was appalled to find water coming through the drawing room ceiling above the bay window. The neglected clematis had finally blocked the gutter running around the balcony. There was nothing to be done but to put a bucket under the leak and hope there was a dry spell for the next two weeks.
Cutting it back and clearing the gutters that autumn was a big job and I ignored the sage advice when dealing with a very mature plant – which is to take half away one season and leave the rest to the next. To avoid the extra work I simply cut it all back to first floor level and carted away an enormous amount of pruned branches and leaves. I refer to this sort of activity as ‘hackenbush’ in homage to Groucho and the waste as ‘prunage’ on the basis I like putting ‘age’ after verbs to make a noun.
The following spring I waited nervously for signs of life. I was relieved when shoots appeared from the stumps and grew rapidly for a few weeks. Unfortunately, and quite suddenly, they wilted heralding the demise of what was once a magnificent specimen. There was nothing to do but remove the rest of it and learn the lesson. June was never the same after that.
At the time I had no idea what variety the montana might be. I’d never heard of a chocolate-scented clematis. Thanks to the internet I eventually identified it as the variant wilsonii using the brilliant expedient of googling ‘chocolate scented clematis’. Duh..
https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/91934/Clematis-montana-var-wilsonii/Details
I found a supplier in the West and ordered two plants as insurance. I trained them over a metal arch on the east wall of the back garden and used it to frame a bench.
Although the new plants’ flowers do smell faintly of chocolate they do not seem to have the power of the original – which is very disappointing as it is otherwise just a late flowering C. montana. In a fit of horticultural enthusiasm I have twice taken multiple inter-nodal cuttings in successive years, all but one of which have died of fungal affliction – and the sole survivor is not looking too great this year. Reading around the subject I have perhaps left taking the cuttings too late. I feel defeated by it now and regret promising friends a rare scented clematis, an offer I find I cannot fulfil. I would have settled for even one survivor to plant in the front garden and mitigate my crime. Perhaps in time it would have grown to be a nuisance to someone else.
The Bohemian Waxwing 