The viburnum carlesii that supported my clematis (Nelly Moser) died this spring. I ignored the clematis and now it is, as you would guess, a 3 foot mess of a vine. For now I'm just going to use a cage. As we tied the clem together to make 'caging' easier, it occured to me that I could probably just cut it back to a foot, untangle it and it would be fine, just bloom a bit later.

Is that correct?

I have The President and a Jackmani, too. They are planted at the foot of a stone wall. Are they too vigorous to train along the top? Will they too become all tangled?

Finally, I have a daphne Carol Mackie which got wacked by a felled tree many years ago. It is alive and well, just sideways with the 4 inch 'trunk' horizonal to the ground, before it starts to branch normally. Finally it occured to me that a clem would make good use of these imperfecions.

My sense is that it would have to be a pretty well behaved clem that won't smother the plant. Which clematis do you think would fill the bill for this shrub which has such lovely foliage?

Thanks, everyone.