Garden Pic Wednesday: Camellias
Winter color in the garden is hard to come by, but here in the south we have one shrub that blooms between December & February, brightening landscapes with it's rose-like blossoms. Camellias. Thus their nickname: "Rose of Winter." Actually they can tolerate temps to minus 5 degrees and as hot as 100 degrees and there are 3000 varieties! I don't have any camellias actually in my yard, because the standard shrub needs yearly pruning back to keep in check, otherwise they can become huge and ungainly. I often see camellia gone wild in abandoned landscapes. Last time I asked about dwarf varieties, the garden shop down the road was bleak on the topic. But my neighbor has a pair of standard size red camellia shrubs on the border between our houses and I enjoy those. In fact, I take of pruning them into an upright tree-like shape, so they won't turn into 20 foot wide monstrosities draping into my landscape! The people who originally built the hous...