You only have until the end of July to register for our meeting in Portland, Oregon, USA this year. Registration closes on 31st July 2010, but it has been decided to waive the "late registration" supplement during this last month to encourage the final few to attend. Over 70 members have now registered, but we can still add your name to that list.
The Friends of the Rogerson Clematis have created a varied and exciting palette of events for the International Clematis Society's Annual Conference and Constitutional General Meeting in Portland, Oregon, September 6th through 14th, 2010. Many of the gardens we visit will not have been seen (or may not have even existed!) when I.Cl.S. visited Portland in 2001. We have tried to strike a pleasing balance of public, private, historic, and commercial gardens, throughout Oregon's Willamette Valley and southwest Washington state.
Our base of operations will be University Place, a hotel/conference center owned and operated by Portland State University in downtown Portland. This facility has an outdoor swimming pool, conference rooms, and restaurant with cocktail lounge. They are also providing a hospitality room which will be an information hub for attendees.
The dates of the conference are September 6th through 14th 2010, although special I.Cl.S. conference room rates are available for those staying at University Place starting the night of September 5th. Check-out is after breakfast, September 14th. The room rate will be $79.00 per night per room plus taxes and includes a continental breakfast each morning. Hotel accommodation must be made directly with University Place, and their contact information appears in the registration details that are available online on the FRCC website and in paper form. This rate applies to either a "Double/Double" or a "King Bed" room. To book, either email or phone University Place with your name, number of people in the room, address, phone and a credit card to secure the room.
University Place has a large secure car park. For those staying here with rental cars, there is normally a $12.00 per day parking fee. However FRCC have managed to secure us a special rate of only $5.00 per day, an amazing bargain and cheaper than any other downtown Portland parking. Parking can be reserved either when booking your room or on arrival. For anyone staying at another hotel and driving to University Place for lectures or the coaches, this special rate will also be available (instead of the normal day rate of $8.00).
Visas
In order to enter the USA, non residents will probably either require a Visa or must register under the Visa Waiver Program. It is vital you find out what is appropriate to yourself and make the necessary arrangements and/or register in plenty of time before your travel. Failure to do so in time might mean refusal of entry at your US port of entry.
Inhabitants of many countries are eligible to travel under the Visa Waiver Program but in order to do so you must register online using the ESTA (Electronic System For Travel Authorization) system. Registration is free using ESTA, though there are also companies who also offer registration services but charge for them. To find out more, the best source of information would probably be the website of the US Embassy in your country.
Programme
Monday, September 6th - Opening Day
Conference registration begins at 2 pm, in the University Place (U-P) lobby, and continues through the 5 to 6 pm happy hour around the pool. Attendees will enjoy a buffet supper at 6:00 pm in our conference room, followed by opening remarks and a rare performance of the Goddess Flora Chorus & Deadheading Society, singing clematis-themed popular songs written just for this event! Selected I.Cl.S. members will then present "home movies", their favorite 10 clematis images presented in 10 minutes per person. We will also have a debate on "Digital v Film" photography.
We hope this will be a fun and convivial welcome to Portland!
Meals provided: happy hour nibbles, and dinner
Tuesday, September 7th - Kinzy Faire & Beer
If you look at the photo credits of Clematis-on-the-Web, you will see many images provided by Penny Vogel, taken in her garden, Kinzy Faire, in Estacada, Oregon. This large country garden, nestled in farmland near Mt. Hood, is owned by Millie Kiggins, and sprang from the farmyard when Penny and her family moved in, in the 1980s. In the late 1990s Penny became an avid clematis collector, and she probably has more clematis taxa than any other private garden in Oregon. To learn more about Penny's clematis, see the article in the Pacific Horticulture to be provided in your hospitality bag.
Box lunches will be provided at the garden, and then we will tear ourselves away. Attendees will have the rest of the afternoon to rest or explore downtown Portland, while the I.Cl.S. council meets at U-P.
At 5:30 pm buses leave U-P for a rollicking evening buffet and beer-tasting at the Lucky Lab Beer Hall, the newest location of Lucky Lab brew pubs. You can't say you've been to Portland without visiting a brew pub-micro breweries that make and sell their own beers. Portland has more brew pubs per capita than any other city in North America. Guided tours of the brewery will be available.
Meals provided: lunch and dinner.
Wednesday, September 8th - Visiting Salem
Salem, Oregon, the state capital, is home to many accomplished gardeners, and has its own hardy plant society. Our first stop will be the small private garden of FRCC's volunteer coordinator Doris Starrett. Her garden is on what most would call a difficult site, and is partially terraced. Many of Doris's clematis are grown in containers.
From Doris' we will travel to one of Salem's historic estate gardens, Deepwood. This garden was designed by Lord & Shryver, an iconoclastic pair of lady landscape designers active throughout the western United States in the early to mid-1900s. We will have docent-guided tours of the gardens, followed by a sit-down lunch in the grounds.
After Deepwood, we will visit the garden of Dave and Pat Eckert. Both Dave and Pat are plant collectors, and they have woven their expansive garden into a wonderland of rare and unusual plants, including many clematis. Pat is an accomplished producer of garden art, including the elegant mosaics and stained glass found throughout their garden.
Our day concludes in the countryside of St. Paul, Oregon, at Fergusson's Fragrant Nursery. Started as a labor of love by Danielle Fergusson, she found her niche by creating bountiful hanging baskets for commercial and municipal use. The display garden here is ever-enlarging, and-as one would expect-very fragrant, featuring many roses amongst her mixed shrub island beds. Dinner tonight will be a Mexican-style tamale buffet.
Meals provided: lunch and dinner.
Thursday, September 9th - I.Cl.S. General Meeting/Silver Star Vinery
It's time to take care of business! The I.Cl.S. general meeting will begin at 9:30 am, followed by a buffet lunch served in the conference area at U-P.
After lunch we travel north into Washington state, to visit Debbie Fischer's Silver Star Vinery, outside Yacolt, Washington. Although Debbie sells her clematis via mail-order, she has a large display garden of the clematis she sells or has collected for herself. We will have a picnic supper at Debbie's before travelling back to Portland.
Meals provided: lunch and dinner.
Friday, September 10th - Town & Country Options Day
After breakfast, conference attendees will break up into smaller groups enjoying one of the following options:
#1 - Downtime in Downtown: take a day off to enjoy Portland. U-P is one block from the Green Line trolley branch, connecting you throughout the greater metropolitan area. You can connect for free to Powell's City of Books (America's largest new & used bookstore), Portland's Classical Chinese Garden, or travel across the Willamette River to the Lloyd Center for some retail therapy. Lunch on your own.
#2 - Visiting Mt. St. Helens with Debbie Fischer: our hostess from the prior evening will join the bus in Cougar, Washington for an early lunch in this charming mountain town, and then lead the group to back-roads viewing locations (involving several short hikes) which will highlight the destruction and rejuvenation in the wake of the catastrophic 1980 eruption. Lunch on your own in Cougar, WA.
#3 - Hiking the Columbia Gorge with Maurice Horn: this was the most popular choice from 2001's options. This year, Maurice will be taking the group on several shorter hikes in and around the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge. Lunch is provided.
#4 - Stop Press - This option is now fully subscribed and closed to new registrants - Visit the historic gardens of the Kerr Family with Linda Beutler: Starting with the garden of family patriarch John Kerr, known as Elk Rock or Bishop's Close, we will tour the garden of this influential gardener and those of his daughters, Lady Anne MacDonald and Jane Kerr Platt. Lady Anne's garden, now under the loving care of local plantswoman Susan Bates, is an easy walk up the lane from Elk Rock. At noon, as we lunch on the bus, we will travel to the Platt garden, developed by Lady Anne's more out-going sister, Jane Kerr Platt. Her garden has been a Mecca for garden photographers, and is noted for its unusual array of woody plants. It is preserved by her son David Platt. Lunch provided.
Because all of these groups are arriving back at the hotel at different times, dinner will be on your own this evening no matter what option you choose.
Meals provided: some lunches (see your option).
Saturday, September 11th - Rogerson Clematis Collection & Lake Oswego Gardens
Today we will spend the morning at Luscher Farm, which now houses the Rogerson Clematis Collection. I.Cl.S. members will tour this historic agricultural site with it's manager, Karen Davis, and be given an over-view of the clematis display gardens with the collection's curator, Linda Beutler. Attendees will get a look at FRCC propagation techniques, tour the display gardens on their own or with docents, and vote on their favorites from the promising seedlings in the Test Plot.
There will be a leisurely picnic lunch served under the farm's historic Copper Beech, before we leave in mid-afternoon for our next stop, the garden of Mike and Linda Darcy. Mike has been a beloved radio-gardening personality on Portland's KXL radio for over 25 years, and he and his wife Linda maintain an eclectic garden in Lake Oswego's Uplands neighborhood. Linda enjoys flowers for cutting, and Mike is an experimenter-together they have created a magical garden. During our visit to the Darcy garden, enjoy a tasting of Oregon wines.
Our late afternoon and evening will be spent in the garden of Charlene and Bill Tuttle, in the Rivergrove neighborhood on the banks of the Tualatin River. Charlene and Bill have a large country garden, which contains-in addition to Charlene's abundance of clematis-raised beds for vegetables, Bill's dwarf fruit tree orchard, many hardy fuchsias and hydrangeas, a small barn with greenhouse, and a plethora of new Echinacea varieties (in the front garden). Dinner will be served here.
Meals provided: lunch and dinner.
Sunday, September 12th - Speakers Day & Brewster's "Nearly Ninety" Birthday Party (only a few months early)
This year's speakers include botanist Chris Sanders, who will speak about sorting out mysteries in the Montana group; Lyndy Broder, who explains for us the pleasures and pit-falls of growing clematis in the humid climate of Atlanta, Georgia (USA), Duncan Donald, our RHS clematis registrar; Brewster Rogerson (assisted as needed by Linda Beutler), who will explain the development of his remarkable collection prior to its move to Luscher Farm and development as a public garden.
There will be ample breaks in between the speakers, and a buffet lunch adjoining the conference room.
This indoor day concludes outside as we celebrate the Nearly-Ninetieth Birthday of Brewster Rogerson in the home and garden of Sally and Howie Geist. The Geist garden is located in Portland's West Hills, and is mainly terraced, with clematis and roses planted to flow downhill. Sally is an accomplished amateur clematis propagator, and has clematis and many other types of plants grown from seed. Dinner and birthday cake are provided, and we'll have another chance to enjoy Lucky Lab beers here before returning to U-P.
Meals provided : lunch and dinner.
Monday, September 13th - Sauvie Island and Scappoose, Oregon
Our day starts at Cistus Nursery, which 2001 attendees may recognize as being located on the Sauvie Island property of Dorothy and David Rodal, now retired clematis growers. Cistus Nursery, owned by renowned plantsman and author Sean Hogan, celebrates the Mediterranean plant palette, and has long been the focus of a style of gardening known as "zonal denial". Sean's plant explorations bear fruit in the wide variety of plants available.
From Cistus we quickly travel to the private garden of George Soule, also on Sauvie Island. George's garden reflects his many horticultural interests, includes numerous clematis, and backs onto public wildlife habitat. We will be here long enough to enjoy a walk to nearby Grassy Lake. Lunch will be served here.
After lunch we visit Joy Creek Nursery, which has become one of the nation's premier specialty nurseries and display gardens. Maurice Horn has arranged for those needing plant inspections to have them done here, and of course there will be ample time to shop the nursery's unique selection of clematis and wander the expanded gardens.
As Joy Creek Nursery closes for the day, we will roll down to the Columbia River (technically the Multnomah Channel) for our final night dinner and party at Mark's on the Channel. The restaurant sits at the end of a long gangway, and is beautifully situated to relax on the deck outside or watch the boats through the windows. Since Mark's is usually closed on Monday's, we'll have the place to ourselves!
Meals provided: lunch and dinner.
Tuesday, September 14th - End of Conference
Check-out for those staying at University Place.
Remember, breakfast is only provided for those staying at University Place, and is included in the room fee.
Conference Costs (all are listed in US dollars):
Registration Fee
The registration fee includes:
- all bus and admittance fees,
- 6 lunches (possibly 7, depending on your Town & Country option),
- 7 dinners,
- 1 beer tasting and 1 wine tasting (soft beverages provided at both),
- gratuities for the buses and meals.
The actual fee depends on which "Town and Country Day" option you select, as shown below.
- Option 1 - Downtime in Downtown
- Option 2 - Viewing Mt. St. Helens with Debbie Fischer
- Option 3 - Hiking the Columbia Gorge with Maurice Horn (includes lunch)
- Option 4 - Historic Portland Gardens with Linda Beutler (includes lunch) - Stop Press - This option is now fully subscribed and closed to new registrants
Registration Package Fees per person:-
- #1 - $840 US
- #2 - $872 US
- #3 - $866 US
- #4 - $866 US
Accommodation
To be booked separately by all attendees, see information at beginning of this section.
Plant Inspection Fee
If Plant Inspection is required it is estimated it will cost between $15 to $20, payable once attendees have arrived in Portland, should they care to buy plants and need them inspected.
A Word about Gratuities
Note, when dining out on your own, or having a drink in a bar, or having any personal services, for example hair done, car washed, etc., it is common in the USA to give a 20% gratuity. This also applies when using taxis (cabs).
Registration
This is now open. We encourage participants to use a special page set-up at www.rogersonclematiscollection.org to download all forms, or to register online using FRCC's PayPal account for the best exchange rates. If you wish to have a printed form posted to you, you may request it by emailing info@rogersonclematiscollection.org after March 1st, but don't forget to leave us your address! For those wishing to transfer funds from their bank to FRCC's US bank, the information you will need will be provided on the registration page.
For anyone without email access, either of their own, a relative, a friend or using an internet café, you can request that a printed form posted to you by writing to:-
Attention: Sally Geist for FRCC
1425 SW Upland Drive
Portland, OR 97221
USA
Registration closes August 1st. After this date any registration fees already paid will become non-refundable and will be considered a donation to the International Clematis Society. Paid registrations which must be refunded prior to August 1st will be assessed a $100.00 administration fee. It has been decided to waive the late registration fee.
Insurance
It is the responsibility of all attendees to ensure they have adequate travel insurance and that it includes cover for USA.
Finally
The above information is published here to assist members planning their attendance at this conference and meeting. Whilst we have tried to ensure accuracy, the definitive information is that which is published on the FRCC website.
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For some time your Council has been considering whether it would be possible to organise a visit to China. The last few years have seen increased contact with plant enthusiasts in China and even some plant material being exported, witness the fascinating article on C. ranunculoides in our last journal.
At the last Council meeting in Switzerland, Ton Hannink agreed to investigate options. He contacted Harry Jans, a renown plant hunter and tour guide who has visited China a number of times. Between them they have drawn up this draft programme. It visits some of the most beautiful parts of China and promises to be an experience of a lifetime. However Harry has assured Ton that the programme should not be too demanding.
Current planning is on the basis of the visit taking place in the early part of June 2012, possibly around 4th to 17th June. However these dates are totally provisional at the moment.
Visiting China does present potential challenges beyond those of other destinations and all attendees must be prepared for changes to the programme, possibly at very short notice. We would also point out that whilst many hotels in China are of a very high standard in all respects, other facilities, especially whilst in the countryside, may be somewhat more basic than many members would wish.
Proposed route showing internal flights
Draft Programme
Day 1 - Arrive at Kunming. Meeting point is Golden Dragon Hotel 4* (2 nights).
Day 2 - We will travel by coach to the Stone Forrest (full day). Here we can observe a lot of Chinese plants.
Day 3 - Early morning flight to Dali. After checking in in Hotel we will visit a market and tie-dye workshop in Bai villages, and then visit the Family Zhang Garden.
Overnight at Asia Star Hotel 4* for 2 nights.
Day 4 - Visit the three famous Pagoda's and monastery in the morning (free afternoon).
Day 5 - Drive by coach to Lijiang. Several picture stops en route for nice rice fields and botanic stops as well. Overnight at Wangfu Hotel 4* for 3 nights.
Day 6 - Early start for full day plant hunting at Gang Ho Ba pass + area around Bai Shui.
Day 7 - In the morning visit the 10.000 Camellia Temple and the Black Dragon Pool Park.
Free afternoon to visit the town. Naxi music performance in the old town in evening.
Day 8 - Full day of plant hunting at Gang Ho Ba lower part.
Day 9 - Early morning start to drive to Zhongdian. On our way we will walk a part of the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge. Some flower stops on our way.
Overnight at Sightseeing Hotel 4* for 3 nights.
Day 10 - Morning visit to a large Monastery. In the afternoon botanising at the Napa Hai Botanical Garden and some other areas if there is time.
Day 11 - Visit Tianchi Lake or go by cable car to Shika Shan and botanize (depends on weather).
Day 12 - Early morning flight to Kunming. Visit Dragon Gate and Huating Temple and then visit the Birds and Flower Market. Overnight at Golden Dragon Hotel 4* for 1 night.
Day 13 - Fly home from Kunming.
Estimated Costs
Estimated cost per person in a shared twin room = 1400 EUROS. This excluding flights to and from China and internal flights from Kunming to Dali and from Zhongdian to Kunming.
Estimated single room supplement per person = 240 EUROS.
The price includes:
- Accommodation with breakfast.
- Meals on full board (lunch box when necessary).
- Transfers with air-conditioned bus, other than for small buses when we visit Tianchi Lake.
- Entrance fees for all sightseeing in the programme.
- 2 bottles of mineral water per person per day.
- Tour Leader with botanical knowledge and National Guide service.
The price excludes:
- All flights to and from China.
- Flight from Kunming to Dali - estimated at 95 EUROS per person.
- Flight from Zhongdian to Kunming - estimated at 135 EUROS per person.
Tour information:
We expect to be able to find plants close to the roads, so seeing plants should not be too demanding for attendees. However there is a possibility for 1 or 2 days of plant hunting. For this period, we would be divided into two groups, with one following the main itinerary and the other group going plant hunting elsewhere. Some people might find plant hunting strenuous.
Altitude should not be a problem for anybody, but if in doubt you should consult your doctor.
Finally, if you'd like to see more images of Yunnan Province, why not visit Harry Jans's website at www.jansalpines.com.
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