Clematis Wilt is caused by a fungus called Calophoma Clematidina and can cause the leaves in your clematis to go brown and die back overnight, without any warning. This is what has happened to my Clematis Justa which I’ve noticed this morning. There are no chemical treatments, all you can do is cut the plant completely back at the very base. The fungus has spores which can enter the plant at any little cuts, tears, splits or breaks in the stem. It impedes the flow of water to the plant which causes die-back. It’s not normally fatal and your clematis will recover, although it may take until next year for new growth to appear. You may be lucky, however, and see new signs of life appear within a few weeks. It’s just one of those things which unfortunately happen in a garden. It’s very important to be careful how you dispose of the infected stems. Don’t put them on your compost as the spores will live on there. Don’t put them in your garden waste collection as you may spread it around your neighbourhood. Best thing to do is put it in your normal trash. Also make sure you sanitise and/or sterilise your secateurs afterwards, and before you use them again for something else. Above all, don’t worry and don’t be discouraged, these things happen in the garden, unfortunate as it is.
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Hi everyone, it's Jeanette here from Enthusiastic Gardener, but today is rather a sad morning because I've come out to look around and I have discovered that I've got clematis wilt on my clematis justa.
As you can see here, this whole side, all the way down, is just wilted.
And clematis wilt is a very common fungal disease and the spores can transfer from one plant to another so you have to be careful how you treat it, hence the gloves.
And the fungus produces black spots on the leaves and the stems which become lesions which impedes the flow of water in the vine and causes dieback.
Now it was only a few days ago in the July garden tour that I was so pleased with my clematis justa.
It was flowering lovely, it was looking absolutely gorgeous and then a few days later this has happened.
And you may remember that I said there were three stems along here originally and it happened to the one on the left which I cut back, moved the middle one over, now it's happened to the one on the right.
So the chances are it could happen to the one in the middle.
One way that it gets into the plant is if there are any cuts or broken stems or anything.
So we need to be very careful when we remove this that we don't just tug at it because it might be attached to this good one and that would cause a break in the good one.
So we've got to be very careful.
I'm not going to treat it with any fungicides, any chemicals at all because all you need to do is cut it down right at the roots at the base and take it away.
Don't put it on your compost because you don't want it to spread in if you put it in your compost.
Don't put it in your garden waste for collection because then you can spread it around the neighbourhood.
The best thing to do is put it in your normal trash and just get it disposed of completely.
You will need to wear gloves and you will need to sterilise your secateurs or scissors afterwards with some alcohol rub or something to sterilise them because it will easily spread.
And I have a lot of other clematis right opposite end of the garden but it could spread so we do not want that.
It's not necessarily fatal because it doesn't affect the roots so it will typically survive.
Let's take it off and we must remember to dispose of it carefully, to sanitise everything after.
Don't use your cutters on something else straight afterwards.
So I'm just going to go right down to the base, right down here.
I'm going to cut it right at the bottom and as carefully as I can without disturbing the one next to it.
Put that to one side and just really gently.
So that's that one gone.
The other thing that I would normally do is these little seed heads here.
I would normally cut those seed heads off to encourage the plant to re-flower but I don't want to do that now because that would obviously make a cut in the plant.
So if there are any of these fungus spores around I don't want to give it any way of entering this remaining stem.
So if it happens to this one I will cut this one down to the ground as well.
Obviously it's very sad.
We will see what happens.
It's got some lovely little buds there.
I will sanitise these and not use them for anything else.
So we will see what happens.
This happens in gardening.
It's not always plain saline in the garden.
But I've got something nice to show you.
Just to cheer up this video slightly.
My mum's been asking when am I going to see you plant up that planter.
It's the mosaic tile one that I did over by the garden illusion gate.
So I've planted that one up and also the pallet wall hanging planter.
The plants in the top of that were struggling.
There's very little soil there so I've taken those out and renewed it all.
Put some nice colours in.
In the meantime I'm Jeanette.
I am The Enthusiastic Gardener.
Thanks so much for joining me.
Don't worry about Eucalyptus because the chances are it's just this year.
We may have lost it and hopefully it will flush back next year.
Take care now. Bye.
