What will happen if I *don't* prune a Group 2 Clematis

Question

I've read a bunch of recommendations about pruning clematis, by group. But I haven't really found anything that gives an indication of what will happen if I fail to do that pruning.

I assume that "it won't be as nice as it could be" is certainly true, but that still leaves a very wide range of possibilities. I can imagine the more detailed answer being anything from:

• "it'll look fine on the new growth but you'll acquire a bunch of unsightly old growth"

to

• "it'll gradually go entirely blind".

to

• "it'll die after a year or two".

What would be the result?

Answer 1

The result is likely to be a mass of scrambled stems which just don't look so attractive, though it will still flower. However, you don't have to prune a Group 2 (unlike group 3), you could just let it do its thing and then cut it down to a few inches in early spring every 3 years or so instead if it does look like a scrambled mess, see here https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/clematis/group-two-pruning-guide