On cold and camellias

We've just had a - hopefully brief - cold snap.  Down to -7C according to the sensor in Maria's car last Friday morning.  It's the first serious frost of the winter but has hit just when the camellias are coming into their full display.

I've got six in the garden and, successively, they give me colour from November to April.  The season starts with a Camellia sasanqua variety (I've lost the label but I think it's Shishi Gashira).  It's trained against a west facing wall and is now in semi shade so doesn't flower as freely as it should.  Even so, the relatively small, deep pink, semi double flowers are a welcome sight in November and December.  This one usually manages to avoid the flower damage a period of frost can bring.  But others are not so lucky.

Camellia sasanqua variety

Camellia 'Cornish Snow' I've blogged about before but this winter it started flowering in November and has carried on as the days have got colder.  Because we haven't had a sub zero frost until late last week the flowers have remained undamaged and really have brightened the darker months of December and January. 

Camellia 'Cornish Snow'

Which brings me to the ones that have just begun their flowering season.  These are all varieties of Camellia x williamsii, offspring of the many times repeated C.saluenensis / C.japonica cross that has yielded hundreds of free flowering, hardy and very desirable camellias since it was first tried at Caerhays (a famous Cornish garden) in 1923.

'St Ewe' was the first in flower, just after Christmas.  It has perfect single flowers and a long season from January to April with me.  Like all the C. x williamsii hybrids it has the invaluable ability to shed dead and frosted flowers of it's own accord.  The buds are frost resistant.  The flowers are not.  We get short periods of freezing weather so, inevitably, some flowers get frosted.  With the x williamsii varieties these will soon drop to be replaced by the next set of buds.  With other camellias - notably C.japonica - the dead flowers hang on and on - the bush becomes very unsightly.

Camellia 'St Ewe'

Next off the blocks this year was 'Donation', one of the best known of all camellias.  Hardly surprising.  The combination of prolific flowering and attractive blooms is attractive to anyone with the required acid soil.  The neat shrub form - though it can certainly grow large in time - provides additional attraction throughout the year.

Camellia x williamsii 'Donation'

The final one to flower is the heavily doubled 'Anticipation'.  My shrub is about 8ft / 2.5 metres high after 14 years and flowers profusely, brightening the late winter/early spring days.

Camellia x williamsii 'Anticipation'

Superb camellias and well worth the space the occupy in my small garden.

But the season doesn't stop here.  In a month the fat buds of my single Camellia japonica  variety will be open to produce absolutely formal semi double pink flowers.  It was sold to me as a variety it's definitely not.  I think it may be 'Magnoliaeflora' but I can't be certain.  Whatever it is, its small flowers are a definite adornment although a single night's frost can cover the bush with blossoms gone to brown decay.

Camellia japonica - a white semi double, possibly Magnoliaeflora'

Even out of flower camellias look good with their simple, glossy evergreen leaves and neat habits.  But, even with the continued risk of frost and snow, now is their season and now is their true delight to be seen.  I'll be visiting local gardens over the next couple of months and they will be in full flower, a beautiful start to the new year.

I have a problem with snowdrops...

...the beasties just won't grow in the garden.  I'm not even talking about exotic snowdrops.  Just the common Galanthus nivalis and it's varieties, whether penny plain or twopenny fancy.

It's not as though I haven't tried.  When I first moved in I brought some with me, dug up from my old garden.  Single, double and a couple of varieties, the large flowered 'Sam Arnott' and green tipped 'Scharlockii' .  They came up the first winter and then declined.  OK, the soil and conditions may not have been entirely suitable but they weren't that much different to my previous garden and these snowdrops multiplied well on that site.

So, having failed once, I restocked.  And failed again.  But this time I'd carefully prepared some suitable spots - moist but well drained woodsy soil, summer shade, winter sun.  So failure was unexpected.  So I tried again.  And again.  Pot grown plants, bulbs, plants 'in the green' - all failed to thrive and steadily dwindled in following years.  And I don't know why.  The soil pH is fine - about 6.5, fertile enough to judge by how well other plants grow, of suitable texture.  It's not the climate - snowdrops grow beautifully in the local area, colonising swathes of local hedgerow and forming extensive colonies in local gardens.  It's not my local slugs and snails - they're partial to the flowers but leave the mucilaginous leaves alone.  In short, I'm doing everything right - but still failing miserably.


It's said that the definition of futility is repeating the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.  That probably sums up my attempts to grow snowdrops in my current garden.  On the other hand it's the season for buying plants in pots or in the green, the best way of establishing them.  And it's so tempting.  I just want to see this:

Snowdrops naturalised in a local hedgerow

 Or this:

Galanthus nivalis 'Flore Plena'

In my previous garden I'd started to collect snowdrops.  Now I can't even grow them.  Such is the gardener's lot.

More winter scent

After writing about Sarcococca and it's penetrating winter scent yesterday I was reminded of another distinctive winter scent this morning.

As always, I had my dogs out for their early morning walk.  It's not that long, about 3 miles / 5 km for me, 2 - 3 times that for them.  Virtually all of it through local grass and woodland.  It was the sort of winter morning that we always wish for - but rarely get in our damp winters.  Dry, the sun just beginning to raise the temperature to melt off the tiny traces of overnight frost, hovering mist over the grassy areas with deeper clouds in the distant view of the Tamar, cool and fresh.  I like to vary the route and this morning I took one I hadn't gone down for a while.

The walk was nearly over when the scent hit me.  Winter heliotrope, Petasites fragrans.  Absolutely distinctive though difficult to describe.  A combination of almonds and vanilla is the best I can manage although if you've ever smelt any of the older, more heavily scented varieties of the heliotrope sold as summer bedding or container plants, Heliotropium arborescens, you'll know exactly what I mean.  I was at least 20 yards / metres from the plants, a good indication of the penetrating power of the fragrance.  All this from a head of whispy little flowers above carpets of quite attractive rounded leaves.

Petasites fragrans - Winter Heliotrope

This is not one for the garden.  Introduced to the UK from it's North African homeland it's an extremely persistent weed, regenerating from the tiniest bit of root and spreading to form large patches within a short time.  It's widespread in woods and hedgerows down here despite all the plants in the UK being male - an indication of it's spreading power and persistence.  The patch in my local wood probably came in with some rubble that was dumped where a building site once adjoined the area.

For all it's invasive habits I still welcome that sharp, distinctive winter scent.  Long may it refresh my winter walks - although if it gets too close I'm moving!