244 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
To prune trees of this size without breaking the branches is rather a 
difficult operation. To accomplish it, I tie together at their top, two ladders 
of the same length, and have a man to hold each of them while the work 
goes on, which should be done early in the autumn, as at that time very 
little bleeding will take place. If it were done in the winter I fear the 
frost would often prove injurious. 
Elsenham Hall Gardens. William Plestee. 
CLEMATIS JACKMANI AND ITS ALLIES. 
We have in our previous volumes figured two of the fine hybrid varieties 
of Clematis raised by Messrs. G. Jackman & Son, of Woking—namely, 
C. Jackmani and C. rubro-violacea, whose portraits tell their own tale so 
far as their individual beauty is concerned. These varieties were selected 
from a large number of seedlings raised at the same time, all of remarkable 
beauty, and with a great family resemblance, and all particularly agreeing 
in this important feature, that the plants become literally a mass of blossom 
from the end of June onwards till late in autumn. Their large, richly 
coloured, magnificent flowers would alone be sufficient to place them in the 
first rank of ornamental plants ; but when to this are added the profusion 
and successional continuity with which these blossoms are produced, very 
few subjects indeed can claim a place beside them. It is this quality which 
we have the pleasure of now illustrating by means of a figure prepared 
from a photograph taken in August last from one of Mr. Jackman’s plants, 
selected promiscuously, but admirably illustrating the floriferous character 
of these most valuable hybrids. The figure represents one of the unnamed 
seedlings, but the habit is alike in all. 
The general hue of these new Clematises is blue or violet, a colour most 
useful in the pleasure ground and flower garden ; but there is already con¬ 
siderable variety of tint. C. Jackmani, one of the finest of the series, is 
of a deep violet purple ; C. rubro-violacea, Prince of Wales, and rubella, 
furnish a deep pucy plum colour, varying in shade ; while the more novel 
tints of light mauve and greyish blue are presented by newer varieties, 
named Mrs. Bateman and Lady Bovill. There is also a novel feature 
presented in one which has been called Thomas Moore—which we hope 
by-and-by to figure, and which produces flowers 8 inches across—namely, 
a more profuse development of the staminal filaments, which form a broad 
whitish tuft in the centre of the very broad reddish purple flowers, giving 
them at a short distance much the appearance of huge Passion-Flowers. 
The opportunity Messrs. Jackman have afforded us of showing the free- 
blooming character of their breed of Clematises enables us once more to 
point out how admirably they are suited for pleasure-ground decoration, 
and to record how well they have behaved when used for “ bedding-out.” 
As flower-garden plants dotted about here and there on the lawn, or 
forming an avenue in a more formal flower garden, it is almost impossible 
to over-estimate the gorgeous effect which they are capable of producing 
and maintaining for a considerable portion of the summer and autumn 
months, the bloom being at its best about the middle of August. We have 
seen nothing more enchanting as a floral picture than that presented by a 
fine group of pillar plants, such as shown in the figure. To bring out their 
best effect as “ pillars,” they should be grown in “hills” like Hop plants, 
each hill being furnished with three stakes standing some 7 or 8 feet above 
