No class this week. So I'll tell you about my love for camellias.
It all started at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. More on that in another blog, but suffice it to say: I lived close, and I had a good amount of free time on my hands. I made several trips to the BBG in my year and a half living in the Magic City, but one of the most memorable was March 2010. I remember it because Facebook reminded me yesterday!
Late March in the garden means there's not much going on, but for camellias, it's prime time or maybe even just a little past peak.
So off I meandered through the BBG, and I was struck by the one thing that was flowering (that wasn't a tulip bulb). Come to find out, it was the state flower of Alabama - the camellia.
I ended up taking picture after picture, and I liked what I saw so much, I even made it into a Mother's Day present for my mom.
The North Carolina State University Ag Extension office has the first Google result for "camellia", and it has a lot of good information.
Fast forward a few years and I'm dating my now wife - her mom grew up in (and moved back to) the Camellia City - Greenville, Alabama. As luck would have it, they started a Camellia City Festival - we attended the very first one on my birthday one year. But sadly, there were no camellias for sale.
Now with a house and a yard and a place to plant shrubs and trees and such, I finally have camellias of my own. This winter, I bought 3 of them from Riverbend Nurseries to put by our deck - 2 red and 1 pink. After some initial fear that they'd just drop their buds and not flower because of the weird, wet winter, they're blooming well and seem to be showing signs of getting over the shock of transplant with new growth. The picture at the very top is one of mine.
Late March in the garden means there's not much going on, but for camellias, it's prime time or maybe even just a little past peak.
So off I meandered through the BBG, and I was struck by the one thing that was flowering (that wasn't a tulip bulb). Come to find out, it was the state flower of Alabama - the camellia.
Now with a house and a yard and a place to plant shrubs and trees and such, I finally have camellias of my own. This winter, I bought 3 of them from Riverbend Nurseries to put by our deck - 2 red and 1 pink. After some initial fear that they'd just drop their buds and not flower because of the weird, wet winter, they're blooming well and seem to be showing signs of getting over the shock of transplant with new growth. The picture at the very top is one of mine.
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