Midyear 2025 President’s Message

Dear friends,

I hope all of you are well. Let me inform you about the ICS news.

The Tokyo Congress was a really successful event. Let me thank all the staff, especially Professor Tanaka and Mr. Tadashi Karato. Let me congratulate the hotel Chinzanso for the excellent accommodation. We really enjoyed the three outstanding Oshima gardens. Thank you also to Professor Wang for organizing the excellent scientific session. Attached you find the minutes of the Director’s’ meeting held in Tokyo during the Congress.

International Camellia Register: the register now includes both cultivars and species, hence being the most complete database on camellias. Pictures of cultivars are added, and new cultivars are registered.

Web: our Website Manager, Frieda Delvaux, is regularly improving user functions. It is now easy to enroll, and we are working to fix some issues with PayPal payments. Many ICS regions use the web to record membership data, while some regions do not. Our new Membership Registrar, Carmen Salinero, is contacting the directors of these regions to fix their membership issues and developing an easier guide on subscriptions. Indeed, administering membership without dependable online data is very hard.

Golden camellias: as you can read in the minutes, Directors approved a project for a garden to preserve Vietnam golden camellias. Indeed, golden camellias are endangered and seriously run the risk of extinction. With the help of Celeste Richards, we are defining the funds, the budget, the organization, and the scope of this project. So far, the garden shall be in Dalat, in south-central Vietnam. In that initiative, our leader will be Anthony Curry, we all know for the books on golden camellias he authored with George Orel. In parallel, our Chinese members, especially in Foshan and Nanning, are undertaking preservation initiatives for golden camellias. Thank you to all of them!

Sasanquas: to develop a wider knowledge about sasanqua and related cultivars, I proposed to organize a Symposium on sasanquas in November 2026 in Shanghai. Sasanquas are meeting a growing success in Europe, thanks to sasanqua hybrids, hardy even in cold climates. In parallel, we are working on volume 2 of the sasanqua book. Some material from the UK, USA and Australia was already collected, but we still need more pictures and edit the text. I plan to release the book for the Shanghai symposium, in 2026.

International Camellia Gardens of Excellence: these gardens require confirmation every 10 years and pay an annual membership fee of 200 USD (https://internationalcamellia.org/about-this-programme). The following gardens should be confirmed by the year 2026:

Japan: Camellia garden of Tokyo Metropolitan Oshima High School, Camellia Garden of Tokyo Metropolitan Oshima Park, Tsubaki-Hana-garden
China: Chinese Camellia Cultural Park (Jinhua), Dali Yu’er Park, Wanzhou Xishan Park
Italy: Camellietum Compitese
France: Jardin de plantes de Nantes, Trévarez

The inspection visits should be made by a director of the relevant Region and a director of another Region. For China and Japan both directors can be from China and Japan respectively. I will personally contact the Regions and Vice-Presidents Asia and Europe to define the inspection visits. To speed up the process I propose the following schedule:

October 2025-January 2026: gardens submit documents for confirmation
January- March 2026: Directors inspect the gardens and submit reports
April 2026: the President report to Directors the inspection results and gardens’ documentation to be approved
May 2026: the ICS Treasurer issues a 200 USD invoice for confirmed gardens
June 2026: the confirmed gardens pay their fee, and the Website Manager updates the website

My best wishes for a nice Autumn 2025.
Prof. Gianmario Motta