General Sikorski Clematis Plants

General Sikorski Clematis

Covered in a profusion of magnificent mauve-blue flowers with a touch of pink flush to each tepal and attractive golden anthers, General Sikorski adds a touch of luxury to your planting scheme. Grown over an arbour or up a wall, the first flush of flowers will add a dramatic burst of colour in early summer and, after a light pruning once the blooms have faded, you should get more flowers in late summer and early autumn. Once the final flush is over, delicate fluffy seed heads will adorn the clematis throughout the autumn, creating a new season of interest.

Browse our variety of clematis or see our range of climbing plants.

Features

• Colour: Mauve blue tepals with faint pink flush running down centre
• Shape: Large, open flowers
• Height: 4m
• Scent: None
• Flowering: June to September
• Type: Early large-flowered
• Habit: Climber
• Pruning group 2

Growing General Sikorski

Clematis are happiest in a sunny or partially shaded sheltered spot. They prefer moist, well-drained, neutral to alkaline soil and like to have their roots shaded by stones, pebbles or other plants. General Sikorski is an ideal plant to train up wires or trellis along a fence, wall or over an arbour. It is also suitable to grow in large pots.

Prune in late winter and mulch well in spring. Trim lightly after first flush of flowers to encourage further blooms in late summer and early autumn. Feed with a slow-release fertiliser between flowering seasons.

Planting Companions for General Sikorski

This deciduous climber can be paired with other clematis like pale pink Constance (flowers April to May) or vivid yellow Bill Mackenzie (flowers August to October) to lengthen the season of interest. It also combines beautifully with an evergreen clematis like Freckles, whose purple speckled flowers and dark green foliage will keep the colour going all through the winter.

Grown along a wall or fence, the sumptuous mauve flowers create a wonderful backdrop to mixed summer borders. Combine with the soft apricot shades of shrub rose Buff Beauty and purple/blue perennials like salvias, lavender and catmint for the soft cottage look or jazz up the borders with a hot orange and purple combination by adding geum Totally Tangerine, crocosmia or vibrant annuals like tithonia.

Did You Know?

This clematis was named after the Polish general, Wladyslaw Eugeniusz Sikorski (1881-1943), who died with several others in an American plane, bought by the RAF, flown by the Czech pilot Eduard Prchal (the only survivor), that crashed near Gibraltar due to a malfunction that was probably sabotage. As with so many plane crashes involving prominent people, there is a good chance that the whole thing was a hoax: if you wanted to fake the deaths of a group of famous people in a place with no unwanted witnesses, a plane crash, especially in a remote area, is hard to beat. We may never know.
Born in Tuszów Narodowy, he was the leader of Poland's government in exile during the second world war, and a niche legal industry sprang up around funding to investigate his death - or disappearance - that continues to this day.

This variety was introduced in 1977 by Władisław Noll. It is very similar to Jadwiga Teresa, a slightly older clematis raised by Brother Stefan Franczak, who sent a specimen to Noll in the early 1970's. It has been claimed that the two are in fact the same, but an examination of records shows that in 1971 Noll sent one of the first of his General Sikorskis to Jim Fisk's Clematis Nursery in Suffolk, one year before Brother Franczak sent his Jadwiga Teresa to Noll. The misunderstanding, which started in the late 1980's, seems to have been an honest mistake, as Brother Franczak's own records from the time in question corroborated the others.