Having been rained off in the garden for five weeks now I’m still getting out and about. A week or so ago I found myself in a steeply-sloped, south-facing garden on the Wiltshire side of The New Forest, a few miles south of Salisbury.

I was surrounded by 55 different Clematis montana varieties and they were straddling apple trees, shinning along telephone wires and scrambling through hedges and trees. Sadly some were not open due to the cold spring this year but they were still visions, even in bud. The garden, which belongs to Val le May Neville-Parry, is home to the Plant Heritage collection and opens to the public by appointment when the montanas are out. (Tel 01725 511931/www.clematismontana.co.uk) Perhaps the most beguiling of all was the small-flowered, dark-pink ‘Freda’ which seemed to suspend its flowers on long stems as it crept along an overhead wire. This was such a rich colour, for the thing that puts me off most montanas are the icy, pale-pink flowers. They can make me shudder. ‘Freda’ is much richer, with neatly rounded petals and a trim yellow middle, and she is also one of the earliest to flower. ‘Freda’, thought to be a seedling from ‘Pink Perfection’, was discovered in Freda Deacon’s garden in Woodbridge in Suffolk. It was introduced by Jim Fisk in 1985.

I also admired a larger-flowered new variety called ‘Van Gogh’ (pictured). This was planted four years ago in a large container and it was just getting going. It has deep-pink flowers lightly marked in white and a larger boss of stamens. This new montana is being grown by Marcus Dancer (www.clematisplants.co.uk/01425 652747) and will be available in the future.

These long-lived, spring-flowering clematis need a warm position and take their time to get going. Many of the montanas in this Wiltshire garden for instance were planted more than 20 years ago. They are also among the least hardy so they are generally planted against a warm, sunny wall, or up a protective tree. I saw plenty in Salisbury in full flower that day, whilst stuck in rush-hour traffic, so pollution clearly does not bother them. Pruning is kept to a minimum and takes place after flowering. Cuttings can be taken from new growth in spring. The foliage and buds appear in spring and late frosts can be devastating at this stage so avoid planting in frost pockets.

Drainage has to be reasonable too, for these are plants of the Himalayas, western China and Taiwan. C. montana (literally of the mountains) was introduced into Britain by Lady Amherst in 1831 along with a colourful pheasant bearing her name. The first pink form arrived in 1900, having been collected by Ernest Wilson in China. However C. montana ‘Wilsonii’ is a white and it’s the one I chose to plant on my garden shed, shielded by the greenhouse, because I think it has the best scent of all.