It can be very difficult to determine what has caused this problem or to find any information about it also. Once, while watching a gardening show, I heard a woman mention that sometimes her clematis start to turn black and quickly die when starting new plants. She didn’t really say much more and didn’t offer any solutions. This was very frustrating to me because I had this happen to one of mine this past spring also and wanted a solution. After that I kept milled sphagnum moss on the soil around the surviving clematis. Milled sphagnum moss fights fungal diseases; it is especially important to use when growing seedlings indoors to prevent ‘damping off.’

There are several fungal conditions that can attack clematis but fortunately they aren’t real common. Maybe that is why it is hard to find information about this problem. They start on the leaves and move to them stems, eventually girdling the stems and causing the vines to die.

Pick off and discard the infected leaves. If you have plants that appear they are seriously infected it is best to remove them from the area, possibly throw them away. If you want to try to nurse them back to health keep them away from your other clematis. Prune back to healthy vine and spray with a sulfur spray every seven days. It might be a good idea to spray the healthy plants once also. Leaf spot fungi thrive in moist conditions; avoid wetting the foliage when watering the plants.

If you can’t find sulfur spray in your garden center, Gardens Alive has it. You can find a link to them on ‘Market Place’ found on our ‘Home’ page.

Wish you the best, I know how dissapointing it is to loose special plants.
Bye, Diane