The December Garden - Camellia sasanqua in Bloom

Newly planted Camellia sasanqua 'Kanjiro' in bloom, December 2012

Who says that the December garden has to be bare and brown?

Today and over the next few weeks, I plan to post photos from my December garden rich with a variety of colors and textures.

Most striking are the camellias - three that I inherited and two more that I purchased and planted this autumn. The ones that I planted are called Kanjiro and the too-cutely named Pink-a-Boo.

I don't know the names of the varieties that were here when we moved in -- which is too bad, because I would love to know the name of the pink camellia that is now adorned with dozens of flowers and a buzzing crowd of bee admirers.

Unknown pink Camellia with two bees sharing a single blossom, December 2012

The two new ones (not surprisingly) have fewer blooms, but they seem to be settling in nicely. 

The varieties that I planted are both Camellia sasanqua, the virtues of which are described in great detail on the Floridata site. Here are some of the highlights from the Floridata description:

- Can cope with many different soil types.

- Prefers broken shade, but tolerates full sun if well-watered. (Mine are in partial shade with Eastern exposure. They actually are mostly shaded in the winter since the house sort of faces a Northeasterly direction, but they will get quite a lot of sun in the summertime.)

- Surprisingly drought-tolerant once established.

- Generally hardy to at least zone 7, with newer varieties potentially hardy even further north.

- Low-growing varieties can be used as a groundcover on steep hillsides! (I have to confess that this idea never occurred to me.) Taller varieties can be used in mixed hedges or as specimen plants. Mine are in the front foundation planting.

- Small specimens are inexpensive and readily available.

- Virtually pest-free and can survive periods of neglect.

Unknown pink Camellia and bee, December 2012

Sounds like a tough and versatile plant, which I admire.

As far as I know, there are no concerns about it being invasive, which of course can be an issue with exotic plants like Camellia sasanqua, which comes from Japan.

But despite all of these points in its favor -- and despite the fact that the flowers add beautiful color to the winter landscape and presumably provide much-needed food for bees and other insects at a time when little else is blooming (well, besides by English Marigolds), I have not seen a single other camellia while walking around my neighborhood.

I can't understand it.

Do you grow camellias in your garden? If not, is there some reason you avoid them? Or have you just not considered them to this point?

Note that despite Floridata's glowing endorsement and my own happy experiences with Camellias thus far, I do understand that almost every plant has its weaknesses or drawbacks. Clemson University, for instance, offers a more nuanced take on camellias with a description of several diseases and pests that can attack the plants. Yet there are many other plants equally or more susceptible to damage and decline that are widely planted in the Middle Tennessee landscape, and I would argue that Camellias unique attributes - its glossy green evergreen leaves, its long season of beautiful blooms in the fall and winter stretching over weeks or even months, its clear attraction for the bees that so desperately need sources of pollen in our suburban landscape -- all of this should encourage homeowners to give camellias another look when considering new plants for the garden.

Alianthus webworm (Atteva aurea) on Camellia blossom, December 2012

Personally, in my own garden, I have not noticed many problems on the two established camellias. There were some occasional problems with leaf yellowing last year, which I thought might have been due to alkaline soil issues, since I believe camellias prefer more acidic growing conditions. So I added a bit of organic Espoma acidic fertilizer to the soil in the fall and both plants look healthier than ever with far more blooms this year than last.

Camellia sasanqua 'Kanjiro' flower, just starting to open, December 2012

Four last observations on Camellia sasanqua:

1) Freezing weather does not seem to damage those buds that are tightly closed, but temperatures in the 20s (like those we had last months) may kill those flowers that are already blooming or buds that have already partially opened. In our case, the cold snap only lasted a week or so. When the weather warmed up, I just picked off the dead flowers and new ones from undamaged buds soon started blooming again within a few days.

2) As with many other types of flowering plants, it has been my observation that the bees tend to prefer visiting the simple, open and accessible flowers over the highly-ruffled "fancier" types of blooms. This seems to make sense intuitively. If I were a bee, I imagine that I would go straight for the accessible pollen too rather than trying to fight my way through a maze of petals. Yes, I am blatantly anthropomorphizing.

3) There seems to be quite a lot of variation among the camellias in terms of the extent to which dead flowers persist on the plant. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, deadheading flowers is a pet peeve of mine. Therefore, I tend to prefer plants where the old flowers either fall off, are hardly noticeable or even attractive (as with coneflowers, sunflowers, Autumn Joy sedum, etc.) My highly unscientific observation would be that the camellias with simple flowers tend to be a bit better in this regard, with the individual petals falling off and making a pretty carpet on the ground. By contrast, the ones with more complex flowers seem to hang on the plant longer to the point where even I am compelled to do some deadheading. So for this reason - plus out of consideration to the bees - I do think I will try to plant camellia varieties with simpler flowers in the future.

4) Camellias can reportedly live for a very, very long time. There is something nice and noble, I think, in the notion that a gardener could/should seek to leave a legacy for the next generation. Well, there are reportedly camellias living in Europe that are over 230 years old and I'd imagine that there are probably camellias in Japan that are even older than that. So if you plant and nurture a camellia today, you could be "paying it forward" and giving beauty and pleasure not just to the next generation, but to many more generations to come.

Unknown white Camellia blossom, December 2012

Eager to see how these camellias perform in 2013? Want to see the blooms from the one camellia bush that is still just covered with buds (not shown here)? Even the busiest bee can stay in the loop with free email updates.

Plans and Dreams #1 - The Front Foundation

Part of the front foundation planting today. The plant in the upper right corner is a camellia, planted too close to the house, but otherwise quite nice. The slightly bushy green mound in front of it is an aquilegia and there's a lonicera sempervivens next to the stairs. There's some ajuga too and a lot of self-sown calendula officinalis seedlings that will die this winter, but as you can see, a lot of bare ground and not much in the way of shrubbery.

Are all gardeners dreamers? I know that I am.

I can't help looking at a catalog or a nursery website and imagining how many of the beautiful plants therein would look in my landscape.

This autumn, I'm taking the next step in trying to implement some of those plans and dreams in my front foundation bed.

When we bought the house in spring 2011, this east-facing bed was dominated by a multitude of small bland boxwoods, three large Nellie Stevens hollies and a thick carpet of Liriope. (I'm not sure which kind, but I believe it was Liriope muscari.)

In my not-so-infinite wisdom, we ripped out almost all these plants. I didn't want the prickly hollies (one of which was way too big for its location and threatening to give the squirrels a stepping-stone to the roof), the blah boxwoods or the tattered, brown rampant liriope.

So we got rid of almost everything in the front border, keeping only five azaleas and three camellias. I like plants that have flowers.

That left us with lots of bare space. Bare space, as any gardener knows, is an invitation to weeds.

I didn't want that, so I tried to fill in the space with mail-order shrubs, perennials and annuals.

Fast forward six months to today: The tiny shrubs that arrived in the mail either died or didn't grow much. Some of the perennials thrived (Ajuga, Hardy Blue Plumbago, Sweet Woodruff, Lonicera sempervivens), others died (Smilacina racemosa) or barely hung on (Clematis integrifolia). The annuals have mostly run their course. Sweet alyssum is still blooming and the English marigolds are on their second generation now, but that will all be over soon.

And it will be back to lots of bare ground and an exposed foundation, which is a big faux-pas in this neighborhood.

Another portion of the foundation planting. That's another too-close-to-the-stairs camellia on the left and a newly-planted gardenia in the middle. There are some tiny aronia (chokeberries) in the picture too and a lot of bare ground.

So I'm trying to fill in the space and create the front foundation of my dreams. I've put in a few more perennials - more Ajuga, a balloon flower, some divided Blue Star Creeper, three transplanted hardy Rozanne geraniums - but I knew that I needed something larger with more presence and impact. We have a large two-story house. Rozanne geraniums weren't quite on a scale to get noticed from the street or even a casual visitor.

The first step I took was to buy a gardenia. We had taken a garden tour in the spring and both my wife and I were intoxicated by the scent of gardenias. So I took a chance. It was a good price and a good size. I've since read that gardenias are very temperamental and hard to keep alive, so we'll see how that goes. Some leaves have yellowed, but overall a couple months later it's looking alright. (I know we're also at the northern edge of the gardenia hardiness zone, but since this one is planted close to the house, I'm hoping it will be alright.)

I contemplated hiring a landscaper to overhaul the front border, but (foolishly?) have decided that I'll give it a shot myself for reasons of money, time and the sheer pleasure that comes from putting a plant in the ground oneself and seeing it grow. So I did a lot of research, made a trip to the nursery this past weekend and here's what I ended up buying:

- Hydrangea quercifolia, Oakleaf hydrangea, "Snowflake" - Native, beautiful fall color, nice foliage, supposed to have a beautiful long bloom season, supposed to need less water than most hydrangeas.

Oakleaf hydrangea, photo by Chiot's Run

- Fothergilla gardenii - native, supposed to have nice foliage, nice fragrant spring flowers and good fall color

Close-up on fothergilla gardenii fall foliage, by jacki-dee

- Aucuba japonica "Variegata", Gold-Dust Plant - evergreen grower for shady spots. Marvelous foliage. (I didn't realize, but according to RHS, 'Variegata' is actually a female cultivar that can produce berries if a male clone is nearby. I think the berries are poisonous to humans, but attractive to birds. Not sure where to find such a male plant (and not sure I have enough shade for two aucubas on my pretty sunny property) but I will investigate.

Aucuba japonica "Variegata". As you can see, the plant has the potential to grow quite large. Dave's Garden says as much as 8-10 feet tall by 4-6 feet wide. Photo by maggie_and_her_camera.

- Several crape myrtles - Geronimo (red flowers, 12-feet high x 8-feet wide), Tonto (red flowers, 8-feet high and wide) and Petite Snow (white flowers, dwarf, 5-feet high x 4-feet wide). Most people in our community place evergreens at the corners of their house. This is considered right and proper and sensible. But I've never had a hankering for evergreens like junipers or cedars. I like flowers. I like the bees that visit flowers. And I've been delighted so far with the other crape myrtles on our property - five Natchez crapes in the back border and two crapes on north side of the house (didn't plant them so I can't be sure, but I think one in Muskogee with lovely lavender blooms). I've been impressed with the crape myrtles' toughness and I needed something that would be able to survive the high winds that whip around our hilltop property. My plan is to put the two red crapes in the front east-facing border of the house, one on each corner. I doubt they'll do quite as well as the crapes in the back because they won't have as much sun - and crapes love sun. The smaller white crape myrtle, I plan to put next to the driveway on the back of the house near the recently-planted Chaste Tree. I didn't want a crape that would compete with the Chaste Tree and create an overcrowding situation, so hopefully a 5-foot tall crape will fit just perfectly there.

'Tonto' crape myrtle, photo via U.S. National Arboretum

- Ilex glabra, Inkberry Holly, "Nigra" - I mentioned above that I didn't like the Nellie Stevens holly, so why would I rip those out and plant some other hollies in their place. Well, all hollies are not alike. (This may be self-evidence to some gardeners, but it was a surprise to a relative novice like myself.) I may have scoffed at the orthodoxy in our area that says foundation plantings should be dominated by evergreens, but I recognize the virtues of having some green in the winter landscape. These evergreen hollies fit that bill, but they're not prickly like so many of the hollies. They're supposed to be very tough, a trait that I prize in any plant. And Ilex glabra should also stay a manageable size - the species may grow up to 8-feet tall, but the Nigra cultivar should max out around 4-6 feet. Like other hollies, Ilex glabra is dioecious, meaning that both male and female plants are needed to produce black berries (not the typical red berries found on most hollies). Birds supposedly like the berries but unfortunately, since most humans grow Ilex glabra for its foliage and not its berries, growers apparently generally do not bother to sex the plants. I bought three Ilex glabra and hope that I'll have a mix of males and females so that I get at least some berries for the birds. Slow Food USA notes that nectar from the plants - which are also known as Gallberry plants - is used by beekeepers in Florida and Georgia to produce a prized honey.

Ilex glabra, Inkberry Holly flowers with (I think) a bee, photo by Elsa Spezio

- Sasanqua camellias, Kanjiro and Pink-a-Boo - I've been really happy with the three camellias we have in the front foundation. Two of them are blooming right now and even when they are not blooming, the dark green foliage is attractive and (usually) healthy. They seem happier since I scattered some acidic fertilizer beneath them this past autumn - two of the bushes that didn't bloom at all last year bloomed heavily this time and the other one, which I guess blooms later in the year, is covered with buds. I love flowers, so I tend to try to find floriferous plants with long bloom seasons, but there are not too many plants (as far as I know) that will keep flowering in cold Middle Tennessee winters. Camellias offer a beautiful splash of color in the landscape, so I'm hoping these two new additions will thrive and join the tree existing camellias to create a really nice tapestry of winter blooms. Pink-a-Boo in particular seemed popular with bees at the nursery even on an early November day, so I'm hoping that adding these plants to my landscape will also provide more food for pollinators.

Camellia sasanqua (probably) 'Kanjiro' with bee, photo by Greenstone Girl

That's about it. I did buy one other perennial plant, but it's for the border at the back of the house so I'll cover it separately in another post.

Including delivery (scheduled for tomorrow) and with a seasonal 25% discount on the three crape myrtle trees, I spent a bit less than $500 on all these plants. I could have certainly spent less money had I bought smaller plants, but with a chance that we'll put our house on the market in a couple of years, I thought it made sense to buy larger plants so that the landscape looks more mature, even if they are also more work to plant up front. The Aucuba, Fothergilla and Ilex glabra all came in 3-gallon containers. The Hydrangea, both Camellias and two of the crape myrtles are 5-gallon size, and one of the crapes comes in a 7-gallon container.

Dear Readers: I would be honored to hear your thoughts as to the worthiness of my plant selections and the price I paid. Of course, if anyone has grown these plants themselves, I would be eager to hear about your experiences and/or receive your advice on planting and caring for them.

What will happen to the front foundation (and the rest of the garden)? Find out with free email updates.