Bringing colour to your Winter (Camelia)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	Camelia
Date:	03/04/05 (2198 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Colour all winter long

Disadvantages: Expensive, Location, location, location

Isn’t winter depressing? No, I’m not talking about SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). I mean the garden. You look out and what do you see? Green, if you’re lucky. Brown if you’re not.

Actually, our garden isn’t too bad. We have a number of evergreens. Some bushes have variegated leaves, just to relieve the monotonous conformity of colour. It helps.

We also have a Box. This is the most unusual bush I have ever seen. The leaves turn brown in autumn but simply refuse to fall off! It’s not until the spring, when the new growth emerges, that the new sprouts finally push the old leaves off!

We were visiting the in-laws last November and paying our usual visit to our all-time favourite garden centre, Willow Pool in Mere, Cheshire. As usual we were browsing around the most extraordinary collection of antiques and brick-a-brack you have ever seen (yes, this is a garden centre; they just have the most amazing collection of “junk” for sale as well) when we came across a blaze of colour.

Here was a collection of camellias, all in full bloom. This was November don’t forget. The predominant colour was pink but there were also various shades of red as well. My wife looked at me and almost in unison we said “We really need one of these”.

One particular variety stood out. A Camellia Japonica Yuba Shibori. The flowers are a beautiful variegated pink, almost striped, light and dark pink. It had loads of flowers on and plenty of buds, showing that there were loads more still to come. The leaves are a shiny intense dark green. Ours stands about three feet tall.

According to the label the camellia flowers from February to April. Clearly no one had told this one! It has given us endless pleasure throughout the winter. Maybe “Global Warming” has something to do with this? Not once has been without blossom. Only now is it starting to lose its final flowers.

And the way the flowers die is unusual. The whole flower falls off in full development. The ground around the plant looks like it’s covered with an abundance of ground-cover plants. Of course, eventually they fade to brown.

The camellia likes a shady location and a predominantly acidic soil. They love moist soil but will not tolerate water-logged soil. It helps to mulch the soil around the roots, to ensure the soil doesn’t dry out and to provide a fertile environment. They are not particularly susceptible to insects of disease so, well looked-after, should last for years.

Camellias are not cheap. Ours cost us £45. But, for the pleasure it brings, I think that’s good value.

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