Camellia 'Cornish Snow'

I like Camellias.  I've got 6 crammed into a fairly small garden and, after 10 or more years in the ground, they are all fairly substantial.  With my C.sasanqua  variety starting the season in late Autumn and the others flowering in late winter through to mid spring I've got a lot of colour at difficult times of the year.  Even in summer their glossy evergreen leaves are an attractive backdrop.  But only one of the six goes that little bit further and adds interest with bronzed young foliage.  That one is 'Cornish Snow'.

Camellia 'Cornish Snow' early spring flowers

Camellia 'Cornish Snow' early summer foliage

The effect is subtle, I admit, but no less attractive.  One parent is C.cuspidata, another bronzed foliage camellia, and the inheritance comes through strongly in the rather open shape of the shrub and it's slightly lax habit. The influence of C.saluenensis, the other parent and, when crossed with C.japonica, the parent of the fabulous x williamsii hybrids, is not as much in evidence.


It's now about 8ft in height and nearly as much across after about a dozen years in the ground but lets enough light through it's airy structure that it doesn't cast the same shade as other camellias.  I'm glad I bought it - and I'm glad it's happy with me.