About Camellia

About Camellia


Camellia can be ranked among the truly wonderful and special flowers. With its everlasting green leaves, camellia will create a special ambiance in your garden.
Camellia’s red leaves offer quite a charming display as well. Any garden having camellia’s can be considered a lovely one. This nice flower adds charm and can turn a garden from being ordinary to extraordinary.
This being said, I propose to know Camellia better; therefore I will present some basic information about it.

    Camellias were very popular flowers in Japan and China. Many works of art contain camellias as motifs. As colonization began and Europeans reached Japan and China, camellia was introduced to Europe as well. In Britain the gardeners were successfully growing the plant and by the 1850s camellia had become a very much appreciated ornamental shrub. Camellia was generally liked in Britain precisely because of its evergreen foliage and charmingly red flowers. Even if their popularity waned for almost a decade, the introduction of new varieties and species made Camellia very popular. Ever since the 1950s, camellia’s popularity is growing, and they can be found in practically every garden.

    Talking about gardens, let us focus on some tips for camellia’s care and planting.
First of all the recommended varieties of camellias are the following:

    * Camellia. japonica has the greatest number of varieties and is a very popular garden specie.
    * Camellia japonica 'Adolphe Audusson' is a semi-double camellia with dark red blooms.
    * Camellia. japonica 'Alba Plena' has been grown for centuries for its neatly packed double white flowers that remain the yardstick against which all other doubles are compared.
    * Camellia. japonica 'Fimbriata' is an old, double, white Chinese variety.
    * Camellia japonica 'Contessa Lavinia Maggi' and Camellia japonica 'Tricolor' have white petals streaked with red producing a raspberry ripple effect.
    * Camellia. japonica 'Jupiter' is a fine single red camellia.

When searching for a planting site for camellias the ideal is an area with plenty of shade; the shade under trees can be considered ideal. Generally camellias prefer neutral or acid soil, therefore the soil must be prepared beforehand by adding manure and leaf compost. Regular pruning has to be performed after flowering but before a new growth begins.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plantprofile_camellia.shtml)
    
I am sure that by obeying these simple rules, you will be very successful with growing camellias. Camellias are not only popular garden flowers, but very much liked flowers in general. People are simply fascinated by it. To prove this fascination with camellia’s one simply has to mention that this lovely flower became the state flower of Alabama, USA, as well as the city flower of Sacramento, California; Newberg, Oregon; Slidell, Louisiana; the Chinese municipality Chongqing; and of Matsue City in Shimane Prefecture, Japan as well as New Zealand. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camellia)

Moreover The American Camellia Society was also founded. They are dedicated to promote camellias and offer updated information about its new species. You can find them by clicking on:  http://www.camellias-acs.com/  
Good Luck with planting camellias!
Enjoy this gardening activity and make your garden simply lovely.