(click to enlarge to full size)
This double white camellia has been with me since Ludlow. When we moved two years ago it was covered in flowers, but last year only had two. During last summer I watered and fed it and gave it a mulch of fresh Ericaceous compost and in the autumn buds began to form. After two ‘fallings over’ (it is in a container) due to storms and high winds at the beginning of the year, I brought it into the cold conservatory where it has remained. By avoiding the snow and the frost the blooms this year have been glorious. Perfectly white and perfectly formed waxy petals. I just wish camellias came with fragrance as every time I pass by I want to sniff it.
They are glorious, Jude! Ours haven’t got there yet. Bit nippy in our conservatory. π π
Been a bit nippy in ours too! But this has been flowering since February! Yesterday it was back to being too hot!
Do your camellias cope with the heat in your conservatory then? Or is yours better ventilated than mine?
Too hot? I don’t think I can remember that! π π When it’s warm we leave the door or the little windows open. I dimly remember that π
Still cold up your way then? I have washing on the line today and repotted some pelargoniums. And weeded. Why do weeds have no problem in staying alive?
It’s so variable! Thick fog this morning, then a bit of warm sunshine, and 2 hours later back to chilly and foggy. Everything, in fact, but April showers! Musn’t tempt fate- Mick has a job tomorrow morning π π
He is a landscape gardener isn’t he? Could do with him to landscape my plot!
He’s more design than do xx
I need a doer. Someone to dig a pond and redo a wall or two. Sigh…
He’s at the kitchen table designing as we speak. π Sorry to disappoint! He has a nice mate, Kevin, who does most of the donkey work and I’m sure he’d love a week in Cornwall but he’s fully booked for the foreseeable π¦
Is it really two years since you moved! Time flies. Beautiful camellia.
I know! Scary!
π
Marvellous, Jude!
There’s winter white and then there’s flower white. I will take the flower white, please!!
Just beautiful, Jude π
Beautiful photo Jude. I’m starting to see neighbours’ camellias beginning to bud, with a few flowering already. Yours is a beauty.
How lovely to see one that isn’t ‘frost tanned’.
Yes. Bringing it inside was very beneficial for it. And I have had pelargoniums flowering throughout the winter too.
Taken from a perfect angle
Not so perfect now as I put it outside last week and the flowers are going brown. Too hot in the conservatory over the weekend though. It’s either one thing or another in there!
Here weβre complaining about the end of daylight saving – which we were longing for a while back.
I hate the clocks changing. So nice now to have daylight until 7:30 pm but the 4 pm end of days are still stuck in my mind. I need to be somewhere else in November.
So very gorgeous – do you think they have fallow years?
No Idea! I have only had this a few years and it was very small to begin with. Last year was the first where I have consciously fed and watered it throughout the summer months which apparently helps the buds to form.
ooh didn’t know that trick, will look after the couple I have more carefully this summer π
How lovely. I didn’t have much luck trying to grow camelias at home in the UK, but we have two red ones in the garden here, which are quite well established, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for them. π
Beautiful Jude, my camellia bush is just starting to open
Crikey! Our seasons are almost matching!
Weather is getting quite out of whack
We do have some that flower during the winter, but most are early spring. You are only just into autumn!
They are early for here