Luckily for the slightly accidental beauty of our garden, someone else chose most of our camellia varieties when I planted them about 20 years ago. One of the lessons in camellia lore I'd picked up from my paternal grandmother is that camellias look most spectacular grown en masse - plant at least half a dozen of the same colour and shape together. The local nursery didn't have six of the same variety in stock so Clare, the owner, promised to pick up half a dozen identical camellias for me next time she was in Sydney.
I threw away the labels as soon as I'd checked what growing conditions the bushes needed - shrubs can become ringbarked if the label tightly circles the plant as they grow. This means I didn't take a note of what variety they were, and still have absolutely no idea, as there are many similar ones.
These are a rich pink, a colour I'd never have chosen, but which works superbly. The flowers are also extremely double which I probably wouldn't have chosen either. But 20 years later they are stunning, a soft colour glowing through the greenery around them, and yes, having so many of one colour, and at one time, creates far more beauty than one camellia multiplied by six.
By the time those went in, I'd already planted a hedge of Sasanqua camellias below the chook shed. This has proved a great success in terms of camellia growth - the area is semi shaded, its acidic soil mulched by the casuarina needles from the trees to one side of them, and the bushes are also fed by the occasional overflow whenever a deluge hits the chook yard. But each one of these camellias is a complete individual. They don't just give different coloured and shaped flowers, but each blooms at a slightly different time from all the rest. This does mean we have camellia flowers from late autumn to late summer, but there is no "wow factor" whatsoever.
Sasanquas are the hardiest camellias, especially where there are hot summers or you want a fast-growing hedge. They can easily be shaped to neatness against a heat-reflecting wall or fence, too. Sadly sasanqua blooms only last a day or two - definitely not for cut flowers unless you float them in a bowl of water for a dinner party - but more flowers open on the bush every day for months.
Our "pinks" are Japonica camellias. Japonicas are slower growing and do best in dappled shade, and even in quite deep shade, as long as they get plenty of water.
I've discovered another bit of camellia lore in these last two wet years - camellias don't just give more blooms if their soil is kept moist all the time, but the blooms will be larger, sturdier and last longer, too.
Camellias can survive without tending - they are one of the great survivors in droughts, once their roots are established - but if you want that "wow" of massive blooms for the maximum number of months, feed your camellias twice a year, preferably in mid-spring and early autumn, ie just after blooming and while the new flower buds are forming - and keep their soil moist but well drained all year.
I saw that "wow!" expression on the faces of three small children last week, two girls and an even tinier boy as they gazed at our single reticulata camellia. He stared in awe at the massive blooms dangling above him then breathed, "They are the biggest flowers in the whole world!"
Actually they aren't - magnolia grandiflora easily beat them for size, as do many others, but those reticulata camellia flowers might still make it to the semi-finals in a "world's most stunning bloom" competition.
That particular bush was given to me by a camellia-expert friend, so once again I have no idea what variety what I'm actually growing. The flowers are dinner-plate size, in very dark pinkish red, with more petals than you'd think possible to cram into a single bloom. We picked a great bunch of them for him to take home to his grandmother, while one sister browsed among the fairy-like pink camellias, and the other made inroads into the highly scented jonquils that are popping up all over the place now the days are lengthening.
Reticulatas are the most spectacular of the camellias, but the bushes can be hard to find. Reticulatas need feeding, watering and mulching for the best show. This one was lucky enough to be planted in the corner of our vegetable garden while I worked out where to put it permanently. It's still there, looking smug, as it gets fed and watered among the corn or cabbages during droughts when the ornamentals are neglected.
This is the time to plant camellias. Actually, any time except a heat wave is the time to plant camellias, but if you head to the garden centre now you'll see many of them in full bloom at a time when we definitely need flowers to remind us that the days of iced windshields and sleet-laden gales will soon be over.
Feed them, water them, mulch them and cosset them, and give them a year or two to settle in before they start to double in size each year and produce massed blooms. You can then be confident that you'll have flowers all winter, on heat-hardy and cold-defying shrubs, with flowers that small children may gaze at in wonder and joy.
This week I am:
- Finally using the last of the pumpkins in pumpkin soup. Pumpkin soup is an excellent place to hide some of the winter garden's surplus leeks, carrots, parsnips, parley, coriander, spring onions and brocolli.
- Learning that choko can be stewed in juice then mashed like apples with a bit of rhubarb for colour. Add a crumble mix on top and hey presto, you have something that is almost apple crumble but without any apples.
- Watching a mob of happy kids pick handfuls of cumquats and calamondins. Each ate one or two pieces of the fruit then played "how high and far can you throw a cumquat?"
- Planting two more dwarf apple trees - I accidentally ordered them twice, but they should be gorgeous and delicious.
- Ordering the seeds for spring planting. Don't delay - with rising food prices, vegie seeds may become scarce.
- Mourning the loss of a young olive tree that blew over in this week's gales, with a surprisingly small amount of root attached. I forgot when I planted it there that in wet years a spring bubbles up nearby. Wet soil means rotting roots.
