Mayleen Clematis Plants

Clematis montana Mayleen

Clematis montana Mayleen brings a froth of heavenly scented flowers in pale shell pink to the late summer garden. A healthy, vigorous variety, it will need a sturdy pergola, fence or wall to clamber over. The buds are lovely plump little things in a richer shade of pink, nodding gently above the deep green and bronze spring foliage, which is a feature in itself. These open to large, four-petalled, rounded single blooms, white at the outer edges and gradually becoming pinker towards the centre. Here they join and meet a pretty starburst yellow central stamen. The flowers have a gorgeous vanilla scent: best appreciated when warmed by the spring sunshine. You can browse the rest of our clematis range.

Features

• Size: 10m x 3m
• Colour: pale pink
• Shape: single, open
• Scent: vanilla
• Flowering: May-Jun
• Rate of growth: fast
• Type: Montana
• Habit: Climber
• Pruning group 1
• RHS Award of Garden Merit

Growing Mayleen Clematis

You'll need to train it along wires or a sturdy support (trellis, fence, pergola) with space to clamber up. It's happy in most well-drained yet moisture-retentive soils, but needs a relatively sunny spot, so a south, west or, at a stretch, east-facing border is ideal. Do plant the crown about 5cm below soil level to encourage lots of new shoots from the base.

She is hardy across the UK in all but the frostiest sites in Northern Scotland. 

Pruning is according to Group One clematis, which simply means cutting back to size after flowering.

Planting Companions

This is a cottage garden classic, full of romance and frothy good looks. It flowers from May to June, so looks wonderful with other shrubs and climbers that bloom simultaneously. The pale pink single flowers look wonderful combined with the sky-blue fuzzy blooms of ceanothus, for example. Or clambering through honeysuckle, its pale open flowers a lovely contrast to the tapering burgundy buds of the honeysuckle. An early-flowering large-bloomed clematis such as Nelly Moser makes an eye-catching partner, too, its pointed striped petals in raspberry and pink a shapely counterpoint to montana's smaller, rounded petals.

Did you know?

The montana varieties of clematis are also often known as 'mile-a-minute', a reference to their speedy growth. That said, Mayleen is one of the more restrained ones, so you should be safe to train it up into an established tree, without risking it becoming swamped.