My poor honeysuckle...

Some of you may remember I wanted to try and grow honeysuckle in containers attached to the sides of an arbour bench. Well, the honeysuckles grew like insane - got them in spring and they have grown to about 3m in height since! But they are very very unhappy. They lose their leaves in the lower parts of the stems and those stems are already totally woody. I did not think that would happen so soon? It makes the lower half of the arbour very unsightly, but on the top there's lots and lots of green leaves (no flowers, but I did not expect flowers on them this year anyway).

But most of all, the roots are already starting to spill out of their containers! Far far far too small abviously - so I will have to cut the plants back to manageable height and re-plant in the ground.

Not generally a problem with that, we just built a cat enclosure and need to grow climbers and shrubs all over it to hide it from view a little... so good use for the honeysuckles. Question is more - WHEN? Can I do this at this time of year (cutting back and re-planting) or should I wait until the autumn?

Also, of my two clematis I bought earlier this year, one is now flowering profusely (considering I only had it since late May and it was tiny then!) but the other one died (not lack of water, it simply never caught on...). I cut all the dead stuff away but left the roots in place as the inside of the stems looked green and healthy enough. Any chance that it will come back next spring or may I as well dig it out completely?

 

Yes, there is always a chance with clematis- have a look at this thread:
http://www.gardenerscorner.co.uk/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000079#000005

I planted a lot of my potted up plants this spring, they had been in pots whilst I moved- I was amazed at the way the honeysuckles and clematis were root bound- one looked like a birds' nest, very neatly wrapped round and round and round. They were growing well but now doing better! The honeysuckles particularly have flowered much better. My pots were about 15-18" across.
I would wait until Autumn now, unless you can get the out of their pots without root disturbance, in which case do them when you're ready.