The veining in C. 'Pink Swing' intensifies at the connection point to the receptacle. The dark peduncles are reminiscent of C. koreana and its hybrids.
C. 'Pink Swing' is one of a bevy of beautiful hybrids in the Atragene Group to be introduced by Szczepan Marczyński in 2012. Others from that year are: C. 'Lemon Beauty', C. 'Lemon Dream', C. 'Pink Dream', C. 'Purple Dream. Szecepan was kind enough to arrange for these to be brought to the Rogerson Clematis Garden when the International Clematis Society visited in his nursery in 2016. The hardiest and heartiest of these "very frost hardy" (per his website) hybrids has been the delightfully free flowering C. 'Pink Swing'. The clematis in the Atragene section of the genus have fine, fibrous roots compared to large-flowered hybrids, so bare-rooting the plants for shipping or to pass a phytosanitary inspection is problematic. They don't always snap out of it well. But C. 'Pink Swing' didn't even blink. It has been easy to propagate, and the pictures you see of it here, decorating the yew hedge boundary of Bed 24 at the Rogerson Clematis Garden, represent three crowns planted in a triangle 12-18 inches apart (30-45cm). The threesome has a metal obelisk to get them aloft, where they grab the hedge with great gusto. The Garden was given one plant and kept two more from propagation. We had ample cuttings succeed, so a few of us got to take an extra home. It isn't mentioned in the Marczyński website, but C. 'Pink Swing' reblooms well in long summer areas. Clematis on the Web has it in the "don't prune" group, to which I stoutly disagree. (As far as I am concerned, pruning group 1 as a designation should crawl under a rock and stay there.) If you include deadheading as a method of pruning, then you will want to deadhead this to get it back into bloom quickly. Any dead wood or non-productive old stems should be removed whenever you see them, and if the whole plant gets too congested, prune as much or as little as you want as you deadhead, after the first wave of flowers (which lasts from mid-April well into May in the Pacific Northwest). It is advertised as getting 2-3m (6-10 feet) tall, but in my home garden it has bested 3m, and I'm letting it populate a 'Sam' sweet cherry tree to see how high it will get. All the Atragene clematis need free-draining soil, and we either grow them in containers with extra pumice, or we add pumice to planting holes, then mulch with washed gravel to prevent heavy rain from pooling around the crown. Do not bury the crown of the Atragene group (which includes C. alpina, C. fauriei, C. koreana, C. macropetala and other tough nuggets from steppe and high elevation climates). The roots should be covered, but you will rot these if you plant them as deeply as one does for large-flowered hybrids. C. 'Pink Swing' has big flowers for this group, 10 cm wide or more (4+ inches). They are creamy light pink, which varies with the weather. Often the color is stronger in the August reboom. The flowers are double, and although my nose has not noticed, all Szczepan's 2012 introductions in this section are said to have a grapefruit scent. There are loads of blue, blueish-purple, and purple hybrids within the section Atragene, but good pinks are a lot rarer. I'd love to see this pretty, fluffy, durable cultivar more available in the American trade, especially since it tolerates shipping so well.
 Its main companion here at the RCG is a bottle brush, Callistemon 'Woodlander's Red', showing its seed pods in this view. |
 In cold rainy springs, C. 'Pink Swing' will appear heavily veined, with the self color remaining creamy and pale. |
 A warm spring, as we had in 2024, gives a much more fully developed display of the cotton-candy (candy-floss) pink flowers. |
 At Tanglevine Cottage in Portland, C. 'Pink Swing' is ascending to unexpected heights. The predominantly shady site, dominated by a cherry tree, makes the color more pale. |
Linda Beutler