This lovely camellia bush was seen from my computer room window just basking in the sun yesterday morning.
I decided to go out and take a picture of it. This image illustrates our need to get a better camera. My original image is very large in size and looks quite good. Reducing it pretty much destroys the quality of the image. Still, it’s not all that bad.
It was given to me by Katie about 8 years ago. A drought and my subsequent neglect probably stunted its growth somewhat. I take much better care of it now and it seems to be thriving where it is. I also have another one she had given me the year before. It is thriving on a much grander scale but it is only in the early stages of blooming right now. I will take a picture of it later when it is covered in blooms. It is quite magnificent in its sunny location. Conventional wisdom says camellias don’t like a lot of sun. My experience says otherwise.
I have a small camellia - is that spelled right? I copied off of you - in my front yard which must have a hundred buds, but they are still tight so I don't know when they'll bloom. I can't remember from year to year, but they are so beautiful when they open. These are palest white with a slight pink tinge. This gets the morning sun and the bush seems healthy and it's been a prolific bloomer so I think the placement is correct. Did you lose anything to the freeze? I don't think our temps went that low. I didn't lose anything and I didn't bring anything inside. I have a beautiful begonia that's lush and full of blooms and I would hate to lose it, but I have no plans to pick it up either.
It doesn't look right to me, either, but it passed my spell checker so I left it. I have not lost any plants except a lone tomato bush that came up on its own in the middle of my winter garden. The blue ginger die off but come back the following year. They haven't completely died off yet. Only the extremities have the typical freeze burn. My variegated gingers seem to have survived last night's 27-degree temps. Had I known it was going to get that cold, I would have brought them in.
They obviously don't like Southern exposure. Katie gave me two when I first moved in to my Mandeville home over 5 years ago. One was called a "Daydream" which I liked mostly because of the name. They didn't last long at all in my yard. I am sorry about that.
Both of mine have strong southern exposure. I think it's the soil. I have one spot in my yard that kills anything I plant on it. I've tried dogwood, camellia, and nectarine on it. Of course, the dogwood test wasn't fair. I've killed every one of those I ever planted.