Well, I can empathize with you, because my five-year-old Jackmanii is also wilting before my eyes. It was fine yesterday. We've had decent rain. Don't see any breaks in the vines. Other two clems are OK--Hagley Hybrid and President--growing on the same obelisk (by the way, bad idea, don't try this at home, kids). My Jackmanii just started to open its first couple blooms, now all the tip growth and the blooms are drooping. Can't cut it off, because it's all entangled with the other non-droopy clems (hence why it's a bad idea to grow them together). Hope yours and mine pull through.

prairie-rose, last year I think all my clems wilted. I cut them back and they returned. I have lost one completely to wilt, at least I think that's what killed it, Will Goodwin. I cut it down, it did not return.

Good luck with yours.

For three consecutive seasons now we have had wet and cool springs....guessing that is the culprit.

We're having a cool, very wet spell here in Colorado, and things seem to be wilting left and right in my garden. Just discovered something -- Henryi, or a Niobe stem -- drooping among my white-and-burgundy tangle. Prairie-rose, you give me pause to think I shouldn't plant my clems so they'll mingle. That's become my favorite thing, mixing colors -- my project now is adding a third color to the two I've already planted in various places. Oh well, I think I'll keep on with it and repent later.

A lesson in the benefits of choosing clems with multiple stems when buying: one of my Cezanne's stems just wilted entirely, but the other is perky and working on a flower. Fingers crossed.

Well, you'd think I'd have learned by now not to let them intertwine, because this has happened before--I planted my Jackmanii and The President together five years ago, and The President wilted in 2007 (Jackmanii has never had wilt until this year--weird). I had to disentangle him and cut him down to the ground, and he didn't show up at all in 2008, gave him up for dead and forgot about him--now he's baaaaack! Yep, we've had lots of rain in the midwest (I'm in Nebraska), and my yard is chock full of mushrooms, and my roses are starting to show blackspot, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the wilt--but dang, it is hard to watch, isn't it? Another branch of Jackmanii vine that looked good yesterday drooped overnight, pretty soon I'll have a few green vines fighting their way around a brown, crispy mess--how attractive!

My clems have never looked anywhere near as wonderful and lush as many in my neighborhood, anyway--everyone around me has clems that are solid walls of huge blooms every June (and I'm positive they're never pruned, fertilized, etc--a lot of these wonderful clems are in very neglected yards). Mine are always skimpy and scraggly despite my loving efforts(when they're not succumbing to dreaded diseases). So frustrating--I'm about to give up on these plants, I just have bad luck with them.

I will tell you a little secret here. I rarely prune any of mine....haven't fertilized them either. I have a solid wall of purple bloom on the chicken house from a couple of different purples that are supposed to be pruned way down each year. I just never get around to it. I will probably do it this year just because of the huge tangle they have become.
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Gldno--

Beautiful! See, that's what all my non-pruning/non-fertilizing neighbors have (and what I DON'T have). I am not going to prune ANY of mine next year. To heck with the advice about chopping Group 3's down every spring to the first set of growing buds, or 18 inches, or whatever. I think my clems have to spend so much energy re-growing, they just don't have it for flowering.

I absolutely love this topic!!! I have a lot in my neighborhood that are type 3's that have never been pruned either. They all bloom & do not get nearly as large as the ones that do get pruned. There is 1 Jackmanii that is only 4' tall growing on a teeny weeny trellis maybe 2' tall! Another neighbor hss a few 2's & 3's mixed together & don't think they have ever been pruned in the 10+ yrs she has had them. Those also stay really short. Leggy they are indeed, but in both scenarios planting a perennial in front of them could hide it. I have contemplated on not pruning my type 3's just to keep them smaller.

I think pruning depends on the plan you have for them. I've seen pics of clems that they used single vines to train around a window. That would never happen with a ton of uncontrollable vines from pruning, so lack of pruning is sometimes ideal.