CAMELLIAS TAKE CENTRE STAGE
These heroic shrubs thrive in dappled shade – and this is their finest hour
ONE of the loveliest shrubs in flower at this time of year is the camellia, with its eyecatching pink, white and crimson blooms.
If you go for a woodland walk, you might see early spring-flowering varieties such as camellia japonica coming out now, while C. sasanqua flower from late autumn into winter.
Camellias have been prized in Japan for thousands of years. There are records of their seeds being used to make oil in the Jomon period 2,300 years ago. Camellia oil is used to this day to clean garden tools.
Carl Linnaeus named the plant after Georg Joseph Kamel, a Jesuit priest and botanist working in the Philippines, who was one of the first to describe it. In Japanese, camellias are known as Tsubaki, — ‘the tree with shining leaves’.
Camellias were introduced to Europe in the 18th century. The first varieties in England and Ireland were brought back via the British East India Company.
NOVEL ORIGINS
IN 1848, Alexandre Dumas, son of the author of The Three Musketeers, wrote La Dame Aux Camelias, a novel about a courtesan who wore a white or red camellia, depending on whether she was available to lovers or not, that was turned into the opera La Traviata.
In my garden on chalk, I can grow camellias only in containers with ericaceous compost, as they are acid loving and require a minimum of pH6-6.5.
Spring-flowering varieties should be planted in a sheltered position out of cold winds and the early morning sun, which can scorch their leaves. They prefer partial or dappled shade. Winter-flowering varieties can tolerate full sun once established.
Higo camellias were developed in the Higo province of Japan’s southernmost island, Kyushu. They were grown by the Lords of the Samurai, who would plant the favourite flower of their deceased relatives in family cemeteries. In World War, II the Japanese government ordered all ornamental gardens to be turned over to vegetable production.
When the Higo Camellia Society was formed to track down remaining varieties after the war, many were found in cemeteries. Now there are 120 cultivars.
Perhaps the best-known is Donation, raised by Colonel Stephenson Clarke at Borde Hill in West Sussex. Head of horticulture Harry Baldwin says: ‘In their native South Asia, camellias live in woodlands, so the dappled shade under trees in shadier parts of the garden work best.’