CAMELLIA CLUB OF MOBILE Newsletter Vol. XIII Issue 3- December 2016

Don’t forget – December 11 – our Christmas Party & Auction

All Club members are invited to join the festivities at our annual Christmas lunch and Auction.  As usual, the Club will furnish the turkey, ham, potatoes and gravy, with all the holiday side dishes and desserts being supplied by Club members.  A sign-up sheet for these dishes was passed around at the last meeting, if you missed it and are planning on attending this merry meal, do contact our Catering Member Fran McCaslin to see if there is anything she would like you to bring.  There will be no formal meeting, just a lot of excellent food in a very social atmosphere, plus the annual Auction of interesting items donated by members.  All proceeds from the Auction go to maintain the Club and its annual Camellia Show, so please be generous with your donations, they really are appreciated!  Board Member Larry Bush has volunteered to be our auctioneer this year. Hopefully we will have a lot of items to auction, plus some camellia plants.  Looking forward to seeing you all at the Botanical Gardens for this Party, it’s always an enjoyable afternoon….

Pensacola  Twins  teach  bloom  prep  for  Camellia  Shows

After writing this headline I realized that I’ve made Judy Kerr & Joan Blanchard sound like a baseball team!  Though all forty members who attended their very informative presentation will have to admit that these ladies really did hit it out of the park…  They provided hands-on demonstrations of how to do everything, plus they handed out ‘goody bags” filled with all the items needed to get started on entering blooms in Camellia Shows.   Judy & Joan also gave out written instructions on everything they talked about (this was MOST appreciated by several members who had been bemoaning the fact they just couldn’t remember all they’d been told!!!).  All the effort and expense that the twins put into their presentation was much appreciated, especially since Joan was still recovering from a very nasty illness.  We sincerely thank you, ladies, you gave us a most enjoyable and educational afternoon.

Grafted Camellia Sale a great success

Despite last Sunday being the day of the deluge (we got 4” plus in Elberta!) a good number of enthusiastic members showed up to purchase special varieties from a selection of 51 grafted plants which had been prepared by our super-grafters Jim Smelley,
Walter Creighton, Don Oyler, Jimmy Walker, Leo Brown, Bill Rawls and Carl Davis.  At $30 each these plants were a bargain! After a raffle most efficiently organized by Jimmy Walker and Leo Brown, the sale ended with 43 plants which leaves us with only 8 to be sold for $40.00 each at the Show in January.  Our thanks to all who participated in this sale, I think most people got the plants they wanted, I do know one lady was happily purchasing her own Christmas present!

Camellia Chat

If you only have time to go to one Camellia Show this season (other than ours, of course!) do try to get to the Pensacola Camellia Club Show which will be held on Saturday, December 10, at The Wright Place, 80 Wright St., Pensacola.  Entry time for blooms is 7-11 a.m. The Show will be open to the public at 2 p.m.  This is always an excellent Show and you will see many people you know, plus some lovely blooms.  This Club started in 1937 – just three years before us.  Be daring – enter your best blooms – you could win!

Went to the Greater Fort Walton Beach Camellia Show and had a fine time meeting up with everyone at this first show of the season. Walter & Alice Creighton and Al & Vickie Baugh won awards at this show.  The only sad news for this Club is that Tom & Cindy Warriner are moving from Crestview to the Birmingham area very shortly .  The Warriners have been very active in this Club for years and have also been ACS-accredited judges at our Mobile Show.  They will be missed, however the reason for the move is just about the best you can have, grandchildren!  After establishing a lovely camellia garden in Crestview, they are now designing a new one further north.

At least eight members of the Mobile Club attended and entered blooms in the Mississippi Gulf Coast Camellia Club Show in Gulfport.  Again it was nice to meet up with all the camellia people from that area.  The Show was busy with quite a large number of exhibitors.

This year has been a splendid one for camellia sasanquas. Mine have all bloomed well (with the exception of my sullen “Yuletide” which has only produced one bloom this year) – I really envied Greg McCaslin’s big “Yuletide” which gave him a huge display of scarlet blooms. “Dream Quilt” and “Dream Team”, both from Bobby Green’s nursery, have done splendidly.  If you want a sweetly perfumed sasanqua, try “Dabney’s Star” another of Bobby’s plants, it’s creamy-white with pink tinged edges and about the size of “Alba Plena”.

Some friends were looking for a suitable token gift for people baby-sitting their hermit crabs. They paid a visit to Robert Moore’s Christmas Town and actually found a gorgeous be-dazzled hermit crab Christmas tree ornament! That shop is amazing!        .