Debutante Camellia December 9, 2012

For some reason I am very proud of this camellia.  I planted 3 of them in November of 2007.  Two of them died.  Camellias are famously slow growers.  Several times I have seen elderly couples in nurseries buying tiny little camellias.  I want to tell them that they will both be dead before their camellia is taller than their knee.  But I don't!  

 Camellias have very specific needs.  They need shade and acid soil.  I have alkaline soil.  But I planted them anyway.  Two of them died after a few years, but this one looks like it is fairly happy.  I have visions of it being 20 feet tall, covered in hundreds of blooms.  That is 15 years away, and there are numerous  calamities that can befall this little shrub along the way.  But if it makes it, it will be beautiful.

 Camellias are not only slow growers, but to add insult to injury, they are very difficult to propagate.  That is why, when they were first introduced from China, camellias were plants that only the wealthy could afford.  The Chinese were making green tea from the leaves of the Camellia Sasanqua for centuries before camellias were brought to Europe and ultimately to America.  My camellia is not a sasanqua, it is a japonica, and therefore, not the famous herbal camellia plant.