I thought of that as well. I assume type 3 are not woody so was hoping it would die back and breakdown on its own.

i had the aggressive autumn fragrant clem ... which heaped upon itself for 15 years... and none of it ever broke down ... and in fact.. mice were living in it.. rather cozily ...

so i wouldnt expect any clem to just disintegrate to make life easy for you ...

ken

Almost any type of vining clematis can get very woody if old enough. The SAC in my old garden had a trunk at least 2 inches across. And although unlike Ken, I did cut it back hard each early spring to fit the iron screen it was growing on, it still managed to consume copious amount of real estate each season. It would easily have smothered any other vine grown with it. And the same in reverse with a montana (type 1), which I rarely ever cut back. A big vine with a big woody trunk that would easily overwhelm another vine.

@gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9) Wow, I had no idea their trunks could get that thick. Thanks for the valuable info!

@ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5 Oh boy...I'm glad I posed this question :) Thanks you!

unlike Ken, I did cut it back hard each early spring

===>>> oh trust me.. i started cutting it back after that debacle ... funny thing was ... with the massive root mass ... it still got huge every year ...

youre welcome ...

but to be sure .. in my MI ... e.g. .. most clems arent going to grow like this/that ... my point.. simply .. was the vines wont break down and disappear ...

i have seen Cs planted to use other plants and shrubs to grow thru .. but i cant come up with a search term.. to get images of such ...

ken

That's the thing with the hard prune, type 3 clematis, or at least most of them IME. They grow back each season just as big - if not bigger - than they were before!!

Grown scads of clematis of all types over my long gardening career and have found that one's life is made infinitely easier if when you combine vines, you do so only from the same pruning groups. Unless like me, you also hard prune the type 2's as well :-)