Another beautiful day. Gentleman of the camellias revisited
Today is winter solstice, the year’s shortest day. “The solstice is usually on 21 December, but comes a day later this year for the same reason we have leap years – the Earth’s orbit takes 365.5 days, so each year the solstice is pushed back by another six hours.”
It might be short, but it’s certainly been bright. The camellias have chosen today to come out in force and have added a welcomed burst of colour to the garden. In related news, ages ago I bought a pin at an antiques market that was designed to take fresh flowers- I’d never tried it before now, and it works perfectly with camellias. I think I’m going to make that a thing. A fresh camellia on my lapel when I wear a jacket.
Inspired by the sunny day I ordered more plants. Twenty erica x darleyensis in red. They’ll make a great winter border.
We were told by the host of the New Year’s party we’re going to that as the guest list is quite international (Australian, British, American & Italian) she decided to ask everyone to bring something from “their culture” to put on a “special table.”
As the party is in France and I’m French, I’m considering just buying a block of foie-gras and saying there you go, welcome to France, have a cracker with it. But instead I might go the Spanish route and make gambas pil-pil. It’s sort of funny because I don’t have family recipes of any culture. The last thing anyone in my family would have ever done would have been to go inside a kitchen to make something. Cooking was sort of looked down on- especially for a boy.
My Mazamet 
You are so pretentious! But, I could sink into your salon 🙂 Looks gorgeous.
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How could fresh flowers be pretentious? 😀
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😀
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your commend gentlemen of the camellias, reminded me of Sanjuro, and Toshiro Mifune calling himself Tsubaki Sanjūrō. Having just gotten a new fence for my urban yard and my current plants being a bit stomped on, I’m looking for new ideas for plants. Camellias might have to make an appearance.
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They’re slow but worthwhile. Every little branch has the effect of a full bouquet of roses when it’s flowering. Beauty on steroids!
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Just found out that they can take filtered sunlight. Hurrah! My garden is a lovely place for hostas and ferns. Perhaps these will grow well and not so stressed as my roses.
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They’re incredibly resistant. Some of ours get a whole morning of light, others are half hidden under taller camellias. They’re all happy and flowering like crazy.
The only thing I was told to do was to add acidic fertilizer every other year. And the old fashioned way: 1 tablespoons of vinegar per 2 litres of water per plant. Double that for trees 😉
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I’m pea green with envy. The last of my camelias died a couple of years ago and I’ve now given up – too hot, too dry and too many alpacas munching away. I adore camelias. -sigh-
p.s. Yes! You should become the ‘bloke with the flower’. 😀
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I’m madly in love with them. Never considered having them in Spain because I presumed they might be difficult.
It’s sort of the town flower. There’s even a variety known as the Japonica Mazamet. And also a “circuit” so tourists can go around town seeing all different types: http://www.tourisme-mazamet.com/userfiles/files/CircuitCamelia.jpg
The climate seems ideal for them. I haven’t done anything to ours at all. In fact I didn’t even water them during the summer. I was told to just let them be and remove dead branches and it’s working 🙂
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Wow – some of those blooms are stunning, but I’m not used to seeing camelias grown as a hedge before. Rather nice, actually. 🙂
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Ours are all big trees. It works medium well as a hedge. I mean, it looks fine, but you don’t get that luscious flowering you get with bushes and trees.
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Yes, we grow them as trees and bushes too and they’re covered in flowers. Still, it beats an ordinary hedge, hands down.
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The floor looks great.
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I didn’t have much luck with camellias when in France…but I might give them another go when I make the new garden here – enthused by your description.
What is it with your hostess? Does she think her guests are specimens of some sort? I’d be awfully tempted to take a petri dish with some agar agar jelly……which might explain why I don’t go out much these days…
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I imagine almost everything must do well in your weather. I’ve never had such a refined (and long) display of flowers as from these camellias.
In Spain I took the easy route and it was mostly oleander and hibiscus. Beautiful too, but not to this degree. I particularly like this variety:
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The rainy season can be a problem as can altitude and the soil around the site of the new house is vile ….so lashings of manure are going in before anything gets planted.
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