Clematis: ville de lyon, ramona, niobe and multi blue pruning ?, 1 by Sherrygirl

Sherrygirl wrote:
I have these four clematis and am thinking about just going out and 'whacking' them down to about 2 feet or less. Do you think this would be okay?

My Ville de Lyon gets tall, but is only a stem or two at the bottom and looks very spindly. I wish I could get more stems coming up from the roots. I probably didn't plant it deep enough because when I bought it, I didn't know about planting them deeper. ;o( Isn't it a group 2 pruner though? Below is a picture of it and I think it's been in my garden for a couple years now.

And I've been reading different things about Ramona too. Some places say pruning group 3 and others say group 2. I'm getting so tired of trying to figure this all out every year and just whack them all down as group 3's and be done with it! ;o) Sorry, just frustrated with it sometimes and need more time in the day to read all about it!!!

Thanks for letting me vent guys!

Sherry