International
Clematis
Society
welcomes all Clematis lovers.
Web Site on the Move
Please note, this website has been moved to a new host. If you have arrived here via our previous host, please change your favourite or link to www.clematisinternational.com. For a short period of time our comprehensive query and feedback form facility has been replaced by a simplified email method. You may also have noticed that the visitor counter has bee temporarily removed. I hope to reinstate it very soon. Finally if you experience anything unusual re this site, please let me know by emailing me, Ken Woolfenden, at the link at thye bottom of this page.Ireland 2006
The third and final of my personal reports on our Conference and Meeting in Dublin, Ireland appears this month, just visit our Past Events section (within The Society) and click on the Ireland 2007 page. If you haven't read the other reports yet, visit here for the first one and here for the second one.A full set of reports on our activities will appear in next years journal, Clematis International 2007.
Our garden this month
The weather in southern England is definitely autumnal. Although some days are still quite warm, the nights are getting colder and the weather is much less predicable and more changeable. And daylight hours are reducing.Walking around the garden, C. 'Semu' has still got some flowers on it, showing deep blue between the green leaves. C. cirrhosa var. purpurascens 'Freckles' is a mass of buds and some early flowers and was a close contender for the picture for this month - but I think it will be even better by next. And of course C. 'Praecox', featured last month, is still goning strong.
So I've chosen C. 'Sander'. The compact member of the Heracleifolia Group, raised by R. Zwijnenburg in 1989, is still young in our garden but promises to be a great addition, owing to it's compact yet erect habit. Unlike some others in the group it shouldn't try to take over the world (or at least our garden), but should be content with its own place.
Seed to the USA
For a number of years the Society has been unable to send seeds to members in the USA owing to a total import ban by the USA authorities. I am pleased to say that the regulation has been partially relaxed and it should be possible to send small quantities. We hope to do a "trial run" in the next few months and be able to offer this service again in time for the next Seed Exchange list.Don't forget, there's no law against seeding seed to Marita Opalka, even if you live in the USA. And now is the time to send in seeds.
Clematis Registration
A new International Clematis Registrar has been appointed by the RHS - Duncan Donald - also a member of this Society. Contact details can be found on the "Clematis Registrar" page in "The Society/Joining" section of this site along with an updated version of the Clematis Registration Form.Also a reminder that the Second Supplement of the International Clematis Register and Checklist 2002has been published, It is available from the RHS in paper format and as a download, for more details please visit the "Clematis Registrar" page in our "The Society/Joining" section of this site. But if you're quick, the Society still has a few copies left at a discounted price of £4.00 plus postage. Please contact me if you are interested. And remember, if there are two or more people nearby who want copies, you can share the postage and make things cheaper still. The International Clematis Registrar and Checklist 2002 is a "must have" for all clematis lovers. However there are new registrations every year and to keep up to date you also need the supplements.
Clematis Festival in The Netherlands in 2006
The third weekend Clematis Festival held in the Netherlands in August 2006 was highly successful, with nearly 700 visitors. I hope to have a short report in next years journal.John Maskelyne
It was with great sadness that I reported in April of the death of John Maskelyne. I will include a tribute to John in the next issue of our journal, so until then I will retain the few words that I wrote about him on our In Memoriam page.Membership Leaflet
As all members should know, the Society has a new Membership Leaflet for international use. A few copies were sent to each member with the January 2006 newsletter, to distribute to family, friends and anyone else they believe would be interested in joining the Society. If you need more copies, please contact Fiona Woolfenden. We thank Szczepan Marczyñski for his time and effort making this happen.
For use in the USA, we also have the Membership Leaflet funded by Richard and Mahala Huff. If you would like any copies, they are available from Richard at cost price. However Richard and Mahala have also allowed us to post a copy of the leaflet on this website for people to download themselves, if they wish. Please see our How to Join page.
Clematis for Beginners List
The online version of this list now contains more information about each clematis featured within it, and should be quicker to load and easier to use. We've put a menu bar on the left-hand side of the page so that you can see each group rather than have every selected clematis on a single page. If you have any views on this format, please do let me know.
For those that do not know this feature, the Society's "Clematis for Beginners List" gives a list of cultivars that are very suitable for clematis novices around the world. It is available online and in downloadable versions in English and also German! All the clematis on the list are easy to grow, easy to look after and resistant to common pests and diseases, and whilst there are no absolute guarantees where gardening is concerned, most people should have success with all of these. Why not download a copy of the list and take it along to your local nursery or garden centre?
Clematis on the Web International Survey
If you're already a convert to growing clematis, have you joined the Clematis on the Web International Survey yet? Clematis on the Web, with the assistance of the University of Hull, is undertaking a major international survey of clematis. This survey seeks to gather accurate information about all clematis in cultivation around the world at the beginning of the 21st century. In fact, a blank Survey form was included with every copy of our latest journal, Clematis International 2005. Use the link above and you can read more about the survey, it's aims and objectives, register and input your contribution all from this site. This is a long term project, it will take a number of years to complete, but it's success starts with the collection of data. So please, take a little time out to visit the site and play your part in this major exercise that will help all of us.
Die deutsche Gruppe
Wenn Sie diese Wörter verstehen können, dann besuchen Sie vielleicht die Seite der deutschen Gruppe bei dieser Web-Site. The International Clematis Society is pleased to publicize the activities of the German Group by providing them with a page on this site. It contains information about future activities and reports on past ones, including the successful Rose and Clematis Weekend in Unterliezheim in July 2004.
The International Clematis Register
I have mentioned a number of times how invaluable I find the The International Clematis Register and Checklist 2002, published by the Royal Horticultural Society. There are now two supplements available, both in paper and electronically from the RHS website. For details on ordering from the RHS, please visit the RHS web site.
There is, of course, still a need for all Clematis breeders, both professionals and amateurs, to register your Clematis varieties with the Registrar to continue to keep the International Clematis Register up to date. We're trying to make it easy by providing downloadable copies in both .rtf and .pdf formats, with the latest form (September 2006). All you then have to do is fill it in, sign it and send it off to Duncan Donald, the new International Clematis Registrar. His contact details are now on this page. You can even download the form just to see what information it requires, and that completing it is not such a daunting task.
And finally ....
The ethos of the Internet is to be an open forum for ideas, views and opinions. Sites should encourage visitors to link to other sites, it's a two-way process. So if you've got a few moments, why not look at our Clematis Links page and follow up one or two. You may find a lot more than you were expecting!
For any non-members visiting this site, have you considered joining the Society? With plans for some very interesting meetings over the next few years there couldn't be a better time. For details, visit our How to Join page.
Last message - for any new visitors. If you cannot see a set of menu buttons down the left hand side of your screen your link to this site may be incorrect. Please re-visit by calling www.clematisinternational.com.
Thank you for visiting this site. I hope to reinstate the visitor counter very soon.
