It being the season, and garden writers needing to endlessly provide reading material, I recently read a piece in praise of camellias. Understandable – they are quite attractive flowers with a good shiny evergreen leaf. Hmm. And
Bit out of focus, but you get the idea…
people go long distances to visit them in Cornwall with magnolias. And blue skies if you’re lucky.
However. Charles has always hated them – because they discolour, rot and generally depress, while still on the bush. Some are reputed to drop cleanly, saving the revolting look of a whole decaying bush of them. ‘Donation’ is one, I believe, and I always understood this was ‘Donation’. Well, don’t get excited.
Not bad….
We had a great year for them this year. Not much frost. Rain not exceptional. Looked quite good for a (short) while.
I used to grow several others, all supposedly clean dropping. I had visions of them all along the back of the border, cheering me up in spring.
Then
yuk
and
o yuk yuk
You should be warned, shouldn’t you? Well, I just did. They always do that.
People used to grow them under cover. Maybe that worked?
Anne Wareham
If I need ever to example to Anne how she is impervious to my feelings at times then the continued existence of this shrub is it. Every year it covers itself with buds of flower and without fail in a matter of days of opening its blooms they becomes tinged with brown at best or at worst are transformed into a mini compost heap of rotting leaves. I am sure that if you breathed on it too hard it would complain and show its true colours. One day I am going to chain saw it down.
Go on then, cut it down. Xx
Taylor’s Perfection is a clear pink, showy camellia that drops cleanly. I’ve had on for thirty years.
I also have a camellia that was magnificent till the wind blew. My garden is showered in beautiful (without tinges of brown) flowers..
Maybe the decaying brown ones have a better cling factor!
Do you get late frosts? In which case Charles is right, these are not suitable plants for your situation. The problem is not that allegedly self-grooming varieties are falsely described. I can say this with confidence being a Jury, It is that they are self-grooming when the flower has run its course. If the bloom is damaged before then (most common causes being frost or petal blight but I doubt that you have the latter), then the damaged brown flower will stay on the bush looking unsightly. Much of the UK is marginal at best for camellias which is why they have traditionally been grown under cover except in Cornwall and a few other favoured locations. More a case of pushing the climatic boundaries too far, I would suggest, than the short comings of the plant genus and modern breeding. There will be hardier varieties better suited to your conditions but you would have to do some research on what these are and then see if they are available commercially.
I wonder what a late frost would be? The camellia flowers were damaged in early March, in a mild winter. A late frost would be late April. We’re not especially cold for the uk.Could any frost is the problem…?
I know a month for month translation is not entirely accurate but March – our September, late April – our October? A late frost for us is anything after early August. A September or October frost would be devastating. But any frost will damage open camellia flowers and mush them.
Those flowers are just not hardy in uk then. Frost is ordinary in March And April in most of the country.That’s clear. And not exciting enough to search out varieties which could/might be…… Thanks, Abbie.Xx
You question whether growing under glass is the answer and we thought it was the problem. The Camellias in the glorious Camellia House at Wollaton Hall, Nottingham, are sadly infested with aphids which means that (especially on the sunniest side of the house) the plants are covered with sooty mould.
I suppose we might have anticipated that one!
your problem with moldy/brown/soggy flowers is due to the lack of removing at least 50% of the buds before they bloom – pop off the buds, leaving just one per blooming branch … doing that provides space for the single flower to have great air circulation … tedious chore? – yes, but the results are worth the tedium …
Thank you. But nothing could be worth that! At least nothing camellia-ish…
I love them, too, in bloom. So much so I believed an article saying that some had been bred to grow in my Zone 5 garden. I fell for the press, purchased several at considerable expense. They all died. Sometime, often, I have to acknowledge I can not grow some plants in my garden, no matter how much I’d like to. Now I enjoy camellias when I visit the San Francisco, CA area.
There should be comeback against inaccurate or over optimistic garden articles. Time the garden media grew up and stopped greeting everything with breathless enthusiasm.
I keep pots of camellias in the back yard where their glossy evergreen leaves hide the bins and such. They spend a month at the front and then retreat to the yard again to make way for potted rhododendrons which don’t grow in our solid chalk soil. I wouldn’t have them in a shrubbery.
Good thinking…
If only the internet would show pictures of plants after they have gone over, gardeners might be more cautious about their choices. I realize I avoid plants that do not die well or provide late interest after spring flowering, as my tiny garden is on show from all angles at all times…so no camellias, nor white lilac or buddliea, no hemerocallis, no forsythia, ribes or magnolia.
I have cistus, sedums, poppies and aquilegia that do not resend post-flowering decapitation, and many other plants that give me pleasure with minimal post-climax letdown. I should have used this criteria to chose husbands….
Very wise, especially the last….. Xxx