Help! Aphids and Ants ate my Clematis

treeny_bash

Will it grow back? I neglected my garden for a little while, apart from watering it, and ignored it when I saw ants crawling all over my clematis. It wasn't until I realised that all the flowers were starting to shrivel up that I investigated closer and noticed all the aphids sucking the life out of the poor thing

I've sprayed the whole plant with bug killer and managed to get rid of the aphids, but now I have a bush with only 2 flowers on it. Will I get any more buds this year or do I have to wait til next year now? And should I dead head the seedy-centres that are left? I'm really upset because the clematis was the centre peice of my little baalcony garden and everytime I look out of my patio door now I just see the poor thing looking very pathetic.

I would really appreciate any advice anyone can give me.

Thanks

Katrina

Mortal

Ants are unlikely to kill it - they harvest the stuff excreted by aphids so they have a vested interest in defending them.
Do you know what kind of clematis it is? This may well determine the answers.