Visit any garden centre in late March and April and you should find some spring-flowering clematis tucked away with the other climbers. The flowers will vary in shape from a double tutu to single Peter Pan skirt reflecting two differing species – C. macropetala and C. alpina respectively. Because other clematis species are also involved now, these clematis are lumped together under the clumsy title of the Atragene Group.

As I write the fat buds on mine are breaking as they scramble over the low stone wall. This is a relief: these gentle and slow-to-establish climbers play dead for most of the winter. However, cold winters suit them because these clematis are bred from species found in cold, windy locations on high ground throughout Europe and parts of Asia. So a bleak windy spot (which just about sums up my garden) is ideal and they will happily face north or east, or inhabit that windy corner that makes you shudder for most of the year. But before you get too carried away, they hate winter wet. They demand good drainage as do most high-altitude plants. Lots of grit in the base of the hole may well do it for you and now (or September) is an excellent time to plant.

C. macropetala is found naturally in Northern China, Eastern Mongolia and Eastern Siberia and it produces wispy flowers that can vary between pale-blue to purple-blue. Look for a good powder blue form because the flowers (which have a green tinge to the centre) appear just as the bright-green leaves unfurl. The simpler shaped C. alpina is found on high ground in Europe.

As all Atragenes are slow to get going, regular pruning is limited to a tidy up after flowering if needed. This mainly no-prune regime means that it is not a good idea to grow them with late-summer clematis which need to be cut down hard in March. You will be faced with a mass of intertwining stems in spring, some of which need leaving alone. It’s worse than unravelling cold spaghetti on the morning after. I have heard of old, woody plants being cut back hard. Personally I would do this over two or three years especially if you want to sleep at night.

Among the best pinks are two with less than inspiring names. ‘Willy’ is a gentle, pale-pink with nodding flowers, each one with four widely spaced petals. ‘Pink Flamingo’ is wispy semi-double, pale-pink and the pale flowers are deeply veined in bright-pink. ‘Constance’ is a wispy, pink semi-double and ‘Propertius’ is a cream-filled pink. ‘Frances Rivis’ is deep-blue with a green-white middle. But there are two forms. The Dutch version (pictured) has four straighter, blunter petals (or more correctly sepals) and the English form is gentler with wispier petals.

I also still love the rather ragged, pink flowers of ‘Markham’s Pink’ raised by Ernest Markham in 1935. He was head gardener at William Robinson’s Gravetye Manor and ‘Markham’s Pink’ is the only pink macropetala. Robinson brought clematis back into the gardening arena in the early 20th century. In his book “The Virgin’s Bower” (1912) he advocates weaving them through shrubs and trees just as they grow in the wild. This was a new concept then, because Robinson was gardening in the era of Victorian gardenesque and bedding.