In this, my third informal report from Clematis 2000, I’ll focus on our optional extension to the meeting, a journey by coach (plus a few cars) to Würzburg to visit the Bayrische Landesanstalt (LWG), the horticultural college where our new president, Klaus Körber, has created a large Clematis garden and grounds.
The college has two separate sites. The first, with lecture theatres, workshops, glass houses and other outdoor collections, is just outside of Würzburg at Veitshöchheim.
It’s a very impressive location, with state-of-the-art buildings for housing some of the many trials they conduct into different aspects of commercial horticulture.
Here you can see two examples of their research, on the one hand various palms and semi-tropical, ornamental plants, and in another part of the college a demonstration of the variety and impact you can get by using different planting styles in hanging baskets.
The second site is a few kilometres down the road, and this is where Klaus Körber has been creating his clematis trial grounds and display gardens. One of his key objectives has been to show the many ways in which clematis can be used with other plants and structures within a garden environment. So as well as many trial clematis there are wonderful flowerbeds and architectural displays to enjoy.
Klaus is very keen on plant combinations and here you can see just a couple of the many good examples he’s created. On the left is C. ‘Mary Rose’, climbing through the rose, Schneewalzer. The yellow of the rose gives a welcome lift to what could have been a fairly dark effect of the clematis. On the right is a good clematis planting combination, with C. ‘Entel’ and C. viticella ‘Elvan’. The complementary colours add variety and body to the display.
Personally I most liked the display area, demonstrating the many different structures, both natural and man-made, over which clematis may be trained. The pyramid on your left, made from willow twigs roughly bound together, provides the perfect support for C. ‘Prince Charles’, strong yet quite at home in a garden setting.
Contrast that with the display on your right, an old fallen tree providing a home for C. ‘Comtesse de Bouchaud’, C. integrifolia ‘Hendersonii’ and C. integrifolia ‘New Rain’.
But my own favorite must be the rusty bicycle, looking as though someone had ridden it into some deep mud and just left it there, and C. ‘Pamjat Serdtsa’ (my thanks to Veijo Miettinen for correcting the previous incorrect identification of C. ‘Alionushka’) climbing through the spokes of the rear wheel.
Follow these links for the other reports on the Dresden conference, the pre-conference visit to Warsaw, Poland and my final round-up report.