The recent Beijing launch of an Oriental fragrance collection of clematis marked the world’s first large-flowered scented variety grown commercially — a milestone for the plant’s breeding and development.

The collection includes three newly bred varieties of the ornamental flower known as the “queen of the vines”. It is the result of a breeding partnership between Beijing Florascape Co and Raymond Evison’s Guernsey-based team, built around Chinese native plant resources with international commercial breeding experience.

Evison, 82, a renowned British clematis breeder and former president of the International Clematis Society, has developed more than 200 hybrid varieties of the flower over his 60-year career in Europe. His company, the Guernsey Clematis Nursery, one of the world’s largest specialist producers of clematis, has sold more than 75 million plants over the past 40 years.

According to Evison, his connection with China started with his friendship with Long Yayi, the pioneer who first introduced garden clematis cultivars to the country and sent Evison some seeds. It was through Long that Evison was invited to take part in a collaboration with Beijing Florascape Co.

The partnership with the Beijing team began in 2020, reaching a consensus to combine China’s native genetics and Guernsey’s genetics with world-class breeding expertise.

According to Wang Zhongxuan, head of the plant breeding programme at Beijing Florascape, Evison supports the team with his decades of experience, helping design the breeding plan, sending strong commercial varieties from the UK to be used in the programme, and taking part in selecting the best offspring. The company carries out the actual crossings and the fieldwork of finding useful wild material in China.

The team’s breeding work started in 2020, yielding its first new commercial hybrids earlier this year. The process involves multiple steps such as selecting suitable maternal and paternal parents, defining the desired traits for the offspring, and finally screening and evaluating the resulting progeny.

“It normally takes eight to 10 years from pollination to putting a new clematis commercially on the market,” Evison said. “Here, we spent only several years with the first new commercial hybrids, which is very fast.”

In the collaboration, clematis genetics in Guernsey and China are put together to develop more beautiful, longer-flowering varieties that have better winter hardiness and heat tolerance. Evison said team members are also looking for compact clematis that will be easy for people to grow on balconies or patios.

Evison sees the cooperation as a great opportunity to breed and develop work with Chinese native plants, which he describes as having the best germplasm in the world.

“China is very important in the world of plants, particularly as the home of clematis,” he said.

“There are over 300 clematis species, and China has about 50 per cent of them. The breeding work that was done in England and in Europe in the 1860s and 1870s was all about Chinese species, including clematis patens, clematis Florida and clematis lanuginosa.”

According to Wang, most of the fundamental species used in modern large-flowered clematis hybridisation originated in China, including those from Zhejiang, Guangdong and the northeastern provinces.

The Chinese species were introduced to Europe nearly two centuries ago and evolved as the large-flowered varieties now grown worldwide. “Evison wants to find new useful clematis and incorporate them into our current breeding work. The work is to be carried out in China and promoted to the world,” Wang said.

With high expectations for China’s horticulture, the British breeder also advised on presenting breeding programmes with trees, shrubs and flowering plants.

Evison is planning to hold an exhibition specially for Chinese plants at a future Chelsea Flower Show, the best-known flower show in the world.

“My dream is to show all the different types of plants from China,” he said.