Clematis pruning

[lingmerth]

We Moved house 10 months ago so haven’t had a full year with our garden. We have 2 beautiful clematis that have had a profusion of flowers last Match/April time.Lots of straggly bits on one of them and I’m unsure whether I can trim them off before they lose their leaves. There were no leaves on them when we moved in
Ive never had success with clematis before so don’t want to do anything wrong!
Photos attached

Don't suppose you happen to have a photo of them in flower?

@seamossthis is the only one I can find. It’s actually the middle of May that they’re flowering so ignore month on my post. They weren’t in full bloom at this point. It’s the clematis on the left.

Given the leaf shape, size and flowering time, I'd say it's a Clematis montana cultivar. Prune group 1 for Clematis. You could cut off any stragglers now as they probably won't flower next year. They can be hard pruned straight after flowering and will probably flower next year. Feeding, watering and mulching will all help. Or just give it a light prune after flowering. Hard pruning every third year avoids the tangle of stems.

@AlwaysGardening thank you. I didn’t want to trim them if it was going to kill the whole plant!

I think it depends on the variety, so a prune immediately after flowering for early ones, and for ones that flower later in the year, prune in early spring. They don't like my garden (dry sandy soil and west-facing sun trap) so I haven't got any.

The RHS website has all the info.

I have a montana and it flowers throughout the summer, it is still full of flowers now so I don't think what you have is the same.