Camellia Club of Mobile Inc.
Newsletter Issue
6 Vol. IX
- March 2013
DON’T MISS OUR MARCH 10th MEETING!
Our Meeting on Sunday March 10th will feature a talk by Bobby Green,
owner of Green Nurseries in Fairhope. Started by his father in 1932,
Green Nurseries are now one of the foremost providers of quality
wholesale camellias to the nursery trade.
Bobby has developed many beautiful new varieties of camellia sasanqua, as
anyone who has seen “Dream Team” or “Dream Quilt” or the award-winning “Green’s
Blues” can testify. He has also rescued from oblivion several camellia japonica
varieties, including the superbly
dramatic “Sawada’s Mahogany”. Do go
to the greennurseries.com marvelous website, interesting articles and terrific
photos. Bobby has been the driving
force behind the rejuvenation of the camellia Wintergarden at the Mobile
Botanical Gardens. So if you’ve any
interest in camellias at all, you should really attend this meeting, we know you
will find it most enjoyable and very informative. Social half-hour from 2 p.m.,
program starts 2:30 p.m. – looking forward to seeing you there...
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PROPAGATING CAMELLIAS MEETING WELL ATTENDED
Our February meeting on how to propagate camellias was a
very busy one as usual, with our experts Jimmy Walker and Larry Heard doing
grafting, Al Baugh demonstrating air-layering,
Jim Dwyer and Ronald Driskell showing how to root cuttings and plant
seeds. Our thanks to Jimmy Walker,
Leo Brown, Lyman Holland, Jim Dwyer, Larry Heard and the Currys for providing
scions for sale.
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Camellia Chat....
First, Bill and I would like to thank the 40 people who made the trek over to
Elberta to tour our garden.
Although some of the camellias had bloomed out many of them held onto at least a
couple of blooms for people to see,
I was so pleased that my little “Oyler’s Rachel Marie” saved one last bloom so
Don and Carolyn could see her. I did see my last “Frank Houser” bloom getting
his picture taken (tho’ I must say if they’d seen the ones we saw in Jim
Smelley’s greenhouse last week, they’d have kicked my bloom to the kerb!). If
anyone has pictures of our garden I’ll be happy to give you a blank disc so we
could have a copy of them.... I was
too busy answering questions to take any.
And, no, we didn’t have a garden design or plan when we started out with
nothing but bushhogged pine trees and eastern red cedars – like Topsy the garden
just growed – with a major rearrangement by Hurricane Ivan in 2004!
If you would like to see pictures of some
really old camellias go to the
Chiswisk House website in U.K. – they have just had their Camellia Festival and
the pictures are lovely. The website is english-heritage.org.uk/properties
chiswisk house. These camellias
have survived neglect and having all the windows of their beautiful conservatory
blown out by German bombs in the 1940s... Members of the International Camellia
Society have been very instrumental in bringing back these beauties.
As most of us know our April Meeting will see the close of the 2012/2013
camellia season. We won’t meet again until September 2013.
The 2014 Camellia Show program will be printed during the summer
& for many years now members
have been invited to sponsor awards in honor or in memory of loved ones.
We currently have only four awards that are available for sponsorship at
$20.00 each:
Protected blooms:
Small Japonica runner-up
Miniature runner-up
Unprotected blooms:
Medium Japonica runner-up
Miniature runner-up
If you wish to sponsor one of these awards please give details to Jim Dwyer or
Vera Curry at the March or April Meetings, you will not be billed until the
membership invoices are sent out at the end of August.
Apropos of the April Meeting –
don’t forget the annual PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST!!!
Bring your photos for any or all of the following categories:
1. Best photo of camellia.
2.
Best photo of camellia with people
3. Best photo of camellia in
arrangement 4.
Best photo of camellia in the landscape.
Pics do not need to be framed,
and members present will vote anonymously for the winner in each category.
We have some really neat prizes for the winners!!!
A visit to Jim Smelley at his greenhouses a few days ago treated us to a viewing
of two new about-to-be-named camellias, “Elaine” and “James Smelley” – they are
both drop-dead gorgeous knock-out blooms!
We got super tips about variegation while there, and Jim says he is
considering putting all his knowledge on paper with the help of his niece, an
absolutely brilliant idea in our humble opinion- you never come away from a
conversation with Jim about camellias without some knowledge you didn’t have
before. Go for it, Jim!!!