Growing Clematis up a Tree: why I don't approve...

One of my Clients had a pair of lovely old Cherry trees, each of which had been underplanted with a Clematis montana. 

Here's one of them, in its full glory:

Everyone who saw them said "Wow!"

And yes, they were very much "Wow!".

Right up to the day that this one just fell over... because the tree underneath it had died, without us knowing that it was in trouble.

The Client asked me if the Clematis had killed the tree, and I replied Yes, I think so. 

He looked at me. "You are going to say 'I warned you!', aren't you?" he said. 

"Well," I replied, "I hate to say it, but yes, I did warn you that this was a possibility."

I had actually warned him several times, every year, that I felt the Clematis was getting too big and should be cut back. Why? Because with such a dense covering, we couldn't see what was going on underneath it.

The Client then asked if the climber had "strangled" the tree: no, Clematis is not a strangler, but the thick canopy of leaves and flowers - beautiful though it is - would have prevented light from getting to the tree's leaves, which would have caused it to struggle.

Without sunlight on the leaves, little photosynthesis would occur. 

Then, such a thick covering of foliage kept the tree inside it very damp - I was shocked at the amount of soggy debris which was piled up in every fork and crotch of the dead, fallen, tree. This leads to rot, mould, fungus, you name it. All things which are not good for trees.

And -  my main objection to growing climbers like this up trees - we were unable to see what the tree was doing, because it was completely covered. So we didn't see early signs of distress, such as dead foliage, lack of foliage, partial death of branches, etc.

OK, it is possible that the Cherry was in decline anyway, and its demise was only hastened by the Clematis: but my thought is that the two trees (the other one is just out of sight) were probably planted at the same time - as this was a formal arrangement -  so if one was at the end of its life, the other one would also be in decline. But the other tree was perfectly healthy.

And, "just saying", as they say, the other tree's Clematis was no-where near as dense as this one. In fact, I used to check the other tree, and regularly remove dead branches, which were visible from the ground: whereas this one was so dense that I couldn't see inside it at all.

Now, I know that many of you really like the idea of a flowering climber scrambling up a tree - it has overtones of lovely old country gardens: but I'm not keen, and this is precisely why.

So my advice would be: if you really, really want to train a climber up a tree, then don't let the climber get too big: be prepared to cut it right down every few years - and when I say "right down" I mean right down to knee height. Then it can grow back,  and the tree gets a chance to have fresh air all over it, and to be inspected for any problems. 

Before it just falls over!

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