The hunt for the red camellia

Back in the early 2000's (that sounds so weird), I went to a garden in the Tidewater Virginia area.  The owner and I were walking down this long, shady path, really more like an allee, since it was straight and rather narrow, when I stopped dead in my tracks.  There, in front of me was the reddest, most beautifully formed camellia - really one of the prettiest flowers I'd ever seen.

"What is this?" I asked.  "I have to have it."

"I haven't the slightest idea," came the answer.  "It was given to me without a tag.  I'm not sure it even had a name.  It could be an unnamed variety."

I rather doubt that latter statement, because if a flower is that magnificent, it would have surely been selected and named.  I was disappointed, but figured I could find a similar one somewhere.

The following winter, I did see a photograph in the Monrovia catalog of a stunning, large red camellia that had to be the twin to the Virginia camellia. I was ecstatic.  But then came the let down.  You may remember  the year sudden oak death fungus was discovered in Monrovia's camellias in one of their California nurseries.  Every plant had to be destroyed.  This camellia was one of them.

But, that's the fun of being a plantaholic.  I will find that big, red-red camellia again.  A couple of times recently, I've stopped my car to see if what looked like a large red camellia could be the one.  So far, there have been some good ones, but not one is quite red or large enough.

I took the above photograph in Margaret Moseley's garden last Friday.  This flower isn't as big, but the color is close.  She has a book with pictures of just about every named Camellia japonica, so maybe I can find the elusive red camellia there.  It's a formal double, the color of maraschino cherries and maybe five inches across.  It's not a reticulata, because it was hardy in a similar climate to ours.

I just went upstairs to see if I could find the Monrovia catalog, as I never throw anything away.  I had multiple copies from several years, but I can't locate a single one now.  But, I will keep looking.  I think I can find this camellia or one that will do just as well.

The hunt for the red camellia

Back in the early 2000's (that sounds so weird), I went to a garden in the Tidewater Virginia area.  The owner and I were walking down this long, shady path, really more like an allee, since it was straight and rather narrow, when I stopped dead in my tracks.  There, in front of me was the reddest, most beautifully formed camellia - really one of the prettiest flowers I'd ever seen.

"What is this?" I asked.  "I have to have it."

"I haven't the slightest idea," came the answer.  "It was given to me without a tag.  I'm not sure it even had a name.  It could be an unnamed variety."

I rather doubt that latter statement, because if a flower is that magnificent, it would have surely been selected and named.  I was disappointed, but figured I could find a similar one somewhere.

The following winter, I did see a photograph in the Monrovia catalog of a stunning, large red camellia that had to be the twin to the Virginia camellia. I was ecstatic.  But then came the let down.  You may remember  the year sudden oak death fungus was discovered in Monrovia's camellias in one of their California nurseries.  Every plant had to be destroyed.  This camellia was one of them.

But, that's the fun of being a plantaholic.  I will find that big, red-red camellia again.  A couple of times recently, I've stopped my car to see if what looked like a large red camellia could be the one.  So far, there have been some good ones, but not one is quite red or large enough.

I took the above photograph in Margaret Moseley's garden last Friday.  This flower isn't as big, but the color is close.  She has a book with pictures of just about every named Camellia japonica, so maybe I can find the elusive red camellia there.  It's a formal double, the color of maraschino cherries and maybe five inches across.  It's not a reticulata, because it was hardy in a similar climate to ours.

I just went upstairs to see if I could find the Monrovia catalog, as I never throw anything away.  I had multiple copies from several years, but I can't locate a single one now.  But, I will keep looking.  I think I can find this camellia or one that will do just as well.

Some forgotten hyacinths and pages from My Adventure Book

Yesterday in Sunday School, our former assistant minister taught our class.   He used the animated film Up from Pixar to illustrate his lesson.  Twice, he had us in tears, showing the love story of Carl and Ellie.  As a tomboyish girl, Ellie kept a scrapbook, which she dubbed "My Adventure Book."  The two grew up and get married and saved for a trip to South America, which they never took.  When Carl is old and Ellie has died, he looks at her book, expecting to see great dreams Ellie must have had.  But Carl discovers something.  Ellie has only put their real lives into her book.  That was her adventure.

When I snapped this picture last week of some hyacinths I picked and without much thought put in the living room, I didn't realize that pages from "My Adventure Book" were right there on the top of a mahogany chest.

First of all, I forced these hyacinths well over 30 years ago, then planted them in a place I seldom go in the woods.  Every year, I forget about them until I see their jewel-like color popping up.  I always pick them so I can enjoy the sweet scent indoors.

Next, the piece of furniture itself was bought with my retirement money from five years as a high school teacher.  I can't remember how much I received when I quit, but my husband and I rather foolishly spent every last dime on antiques.

The darkened silver mirror was a wedding present to my maternal grandmother from my grandfather.  I don't know the year - 1902, perhaps.  The engraving - my grandmother's new monogram - is exquisitely done.

The photograph on the left is my older daughter Anne at age six.  It was taken in the south of France, where we rented a house with another couple.  One magical evening on that trip, we had champagne at a hotel in Eze, high above the Mediterranean, where we watched the twinkling lights of Cap Ferrat as dark fell on the sea below.  It was my husband's 40th birthday.

There's a photo from our wedding on a hot, humid night in August 1973.  My dress had long sleeves and a high neck.  You can see my bouquet of gardenias, which ended up rather brown at the edges by the time I tossed it to the bridesmaids.

In the tall silver frame is a picture I tore from my Cole Porter Songbook.  It's of Rita Hayworth (she was so beautiful) and Fred Astaire.  This immediately recalls the many years my husband and I hosted what we called the "Old Friends Dinner" at Christmastime.  It was a mixture of his friends and mine, and we always ended up in the piano room, with raucous singing till two in the morning.  We'd go through music by Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart and Irving Berlin and throw in Broadway tunes, as well.  We'd always end up with The Road to Mandalay, my husband's (who was tone deaf - with apologies to his late mother who insisted someone told her he had great musical talent) favorite.  He was a great fan of Kipling, and by some odd chance, I happened to have this sheet music left from high school (I congratulate myself for having practiced until I could master the sections written in six flats).

The photograph of the two old lady skiers was given to me by my beloved friend and fellow adventurer, Kathi Woods.  One day, I'll figure out how to relate the subject of gardening to the story of how I became a ski bum in Taos, New Mexico.   Suffice it to say for the moment that it started when Kathi and I were living in San Francisco and went to the Cow Palace to see the great skier, Jean-Claude Killy.  We got seats on the first row in front of a rolling carpet "slope", but ended up missing the star, as he was elsewhere in the huge arena (did we actually think he would ski on a four foot high carpet?).  Kathi and I and another friend ended up spending the winter in Taos.  Alas, Kathi's adventure ended when she broke both her legs on Friday, March 13th.  By the way, that's Kathi on the left;  the shriveled one is me.

The tole lamp was given to us by Claude Sullivan, who was my husband's friend from the University of Virginia law school.  I had vowed to collect French tole lamps, but only ended up with two.  Claude was one of the "old friends".

On the far right is a photograph taken at Anne's Atlanta Debutante Ball after her freshman year in college.

Last but not least, is the painting over the chest.  This was done by Allen Ingles Palmer, who, in his early years, was an illustrator in New York.  Born in 1910 in Roanoke, Virginia, where my husband's parents settled, Allen Palmer was on his way to a one-man show in 1950 when his single engine plane crashed, and he was killed just shy of his 40th birthday.  This illustration was done in 1936, probably for a magazine.  When photographs eventually took the place of artist's drawings, Allen Palmer became a painter.  We bought another illustration (1937) and a painting that looks remarkably like an Edward Hopper.

Of course, there's much more I haven't told about the stories represented above.  The minister did go on to explain that Ellie left Carl a note, thanking him for their adventures and urging him on to new ones.  That actually begins the main plot of the movie.  I felt like I was getting a green light from this lesson.  After all, I'm still a good bit younger than Carl, and surely there are more adventures to add to the ones I've already collected on this rather small space in my living room.

Some forgotten hyacinths and pages from My Adventure Book

Yesterday in Sunday School, our former assistant minister taught our class.   He used the animated film Up from Pixar to illustrate his lesson.  Twice, he had us in tears, showing the love story of Carl and Ellie.  As a tomboyish girl, Ellie kept a scrapbook, which she dubbed "My Adventure Book."  The two grew up and get married and saved for a trip to South America, which they never took.  When Carl is old and Ellie has died, he looks at her book, expecting to see great dreams Ellie must have had.  But Carl discovers something.  Ellie has only put their real lives into her book.  That was her adventure.

When I snapped this picture last week of some hyacinths I picked and without much thought put in the living room, I didn't realize that pages from "My Adventure Book" were right there on the top of a mahogany chest.

First of all, I forced these hyacinths well over 30 years ago, then planted them in a place I seldom go in the woods.  Every year, I forget about them until I see their jewel-like color popping up.  I always pick them so I can enjoy the sweet scent indoors.

Next, the piece of furniture itself was bought with my retirement money from five years as a high school teacher.  I can't remember how much I received when I quit, but my husband and I rather foolishly spent every last dime on antiques.

The darkened silver mirror was a wedding present to my maternal grandmother from my grandfather.  I don't know the year - 1902, perhaps.  The engraving - my grandmother's new monogram - is exquisitely done.

The photograph on the left is my older daughter Anne at age six.  It was taken in the south of France, where we rented a house with another couple.  One magical evening on that trip, we had champagne at a hotel in Eze, high above the Mediterranean, where we watched the twinkling lights of Cap Ferrat as dark fell on the sea below.  It was my husband's 40th birthday.

There's a photo from our wedding on a hot, humid night in August 1973.  My dress had long sleeves and a high neck.  You can see my bouquet of gardenias, which ended up rather brown at the edges by the time I tossed it to the bridesmaids.

In the tall silver frame is a picture I tore from my Cole Porter Songbook.  It's of Rita Hayworth (she was so beautiful) and Fred Astaire.  This immediately recalls the many years my husband and I hosted what we called the "Old Friends Dinner" at Christmastime.  It was a mixture of his friends and mine, and we always ended up in the piano room, with raucous singing till two in the morning.  We'd go through music by Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart and Irving Berlin and throw in Broadway tunes, as well.  We'd always end up with The Road to Mandalay, my husband's (who was tone deaf - with apologies to his late mother who insisted someone told her he had great musical talent) favorite.  He was a great fan of Kipling, and by some odd chance, I happened to have this sheet music left from high school (I congratulate myself for having practiced until I could master the sections written in six flats).

The photograph of the two old lady skiers was given to me by my beloved friend and fellow adventurer, Kathi Woods.  One day, I'll figure out how to relate the subject of gardening to the story of how I became a ski bum in Taos, New Mexico.   Suffice it to say for the moment that it started when Kathi and I were living in San Francisco and went to the Cow Palace to see the great skier, Jean-Claude Killy.  We got seats on the first row in front of a rolling carpet "slope", but ended up missing the star, as he was elsewhere in the huge arena (did we actually think he would ski on a four foot high carpet?).  Kathi and I and another friend ended up spending the winter in Taos.  Alas, Kathi's adventure ended when she broke both her legs on Friday, March 13th.  By the way, that's Kathi on the left;  the shriveled one is me.

The tole lamp was given to us by Claude Sullivan, who was my husband's friend from the University of Virginia law school.  I had vowed to collect French tole lamps, but only ended up with two.  Claude was one of the "old friends".

On the far right is a photograph taken at Anne's Atlanta Debutante Ball after her freshman year in college.

Last but not least, is the painting over the chest.  This was done by Allen Ingles Palmer, who, in his early years, was an illustrator in New York.  Born in 1910 in Roanoke, Virginia, where my husband's parents settled, Allen Palmer was on his way to a one-man show in 1950 when his single engine plane crashed, and he was killed just shy of his 40th birthday.  This illustration was done in 1936, probably for a magazine.  When photographs eventually took the place of artist's drawings, Allen Palmer became a painter.  We bought another illustration (1937) and a painting that looks remarkably like an Edward Hopper.

Of course, there's much more I haven't told about the stories represented above.  The minister did go on to explain that Ellie left Carl a note, thanking him for their adventures and urging him on to new ones.  That actually begins the main plot of the movie.  I felt like I was getting a green light from this lesson.  After all, I'm still a good bit younger than Carl, and surely there are more adventures to add to the ones I've already collected on this rather small space in my living room.

"There's not a thing out there to see"

I neglected to mention that about as often as Margaret Moseley calls me up and says, "You ought to see my garden today.  It's the prettiest it's ever been," I'll get this answer when I call her up:  "There's not one thing out there to see."

I called around noon today to see if I could come for a visit.  Margaret is making an amazing recovery and is in great spirits.  She said I could come, but warned me that it wouldn't be worth it to see the garden.  "There's not a thing out there in bloom.  It's all gone."

Ha! I know she isn't able to see much from her chair in the den, but I ended up taking 121 photographs today.  It was hard to choose just one to publish.  I succumbed to the iron bird bath again with the Camellia japonica 'C. M. Wilson' in the background, a bloomed out daphne on the left and the foliage of Scilla hispanica coming up in front.  While many of the camellias were on the wane, there were still plenty in bloom.  It was hard to capture an entire shrub (some are 15 feet tall), but I got some great garden scenes, despite the poor light and the fact that it's still winter.

This is funny.  I took the photos first, then put them onto my laptop, which I had brought with me.  After we looked at today's subjects: daffodils, hellebores, ipheion, pearl bush, epimedium blooms and countless camellias,  I went back and showed her other times in the garden.  I put the "view" on full page.  Thusly, we went through the seasons in her garden, dating back to my old camera which gave out in 2006.

"Now can you believe I did all this?" she would ask over and over.  It was amazing to see season after season of garden scenes and shrubs and perennials and trees in bloom.  One photograph showed a fall scene, with a'Yuletide' sasanqua hybrid, loaded with red flowers with yellow stamens.  Above it was the bright red foliage of a sourwood tree she'd planted.  I admonished Margaret for having cut down the 'Yuletide' this past year.  She gave me a scolding look, but admitted that she might have made a mistake. "I remember now I wanted those two reds together in the fall."

It was extraordinary to go back through all those photographs and realize that one person with a helper now and then had planted all these wonderful plants - ferns, hellebores, hydrangeas, camellias, azaleas, rhododendons, viburnums, kerria, flowering apricot, cherry trees, spirea, bulbs, clematis, poppies, roses, iris, ginkgo, epimedium, hostas, daphnes, pieris, michelia, Confederate jasmine, bottlebrush buckeye, phlox, Japanese maples, pieris, crocosmia, daylilies, foxgloves, lamb's ear, ajuga and on and on.

After she had looked at the photographs for at least an hour, she turned to me and said, "You know, I couldn't wait until morning when I'd go out and see what was in bloom.  I just loved it.  I don't understand it.  Why would anyone want to go on a cruise when they could go out and garden every day?"  Something to contemplate.

"There's not a thing out there to see"

I neglected to mention that about as often as Margaret Moseley calls me up and says, "You ought to see my garden today.  It's the prettiest it's ever been," I'll get this answer when I call her up:  "There's not one thing out there to see."

I called around noon today to see if I could come for a visit.  Margaret is making an amazing recovery and is in great spirits.  She said I could come, but warned me that it wouldn't be worth it to see the garden.  "There's not a thing out there in bloom.  It's all gone."

Ha! I know she isn't able to see much from her chair in the den, but I ended up taking 121 photographs today.  It was hard to choose just one to publish.  I succumbed to the iron bird bath again with the Camellia japonica 'C. M. Wilson' in the background, a bloomed out daphne on the left and the foliage of Scilla hispanica coming up in front.  While many of the camellias were on the wane, there were still plenty in bloom.  It was hard to capture an entire shrub (some are 15 feet tall), but I got some great garden scenes, despite the poor light and the fact that it's still winter.

This is funny.  I took the photos first, then put them onto my laptop, which I had brought with me.  After we looked at today's subjects: daffodils, hellebores, ipheion, pearl bush, epimedium blooms and countless camellias,  I went back and showed her other times in the garden.  I put the "view" on full page.  Thusly, we went through the seasons in her garden, dating back to my old camera which gave out in 2006.

"Now can you believe I did all this?" she would ask over and over.  It was amazing to see season after season of garden scenes and shrubs and perennials and trees in bloom.  One photograph showed a fall scene, with a'Yuletide' sasanqua hybrid, loaded with red flowers with yellow stamens.  Above it was the bright red foliage of a sourwood tree she'd planted.  I admonished Margaret for having cut down the 'Yuletide' this past year.  She gave me a scolding look, but admitted that she might have made a mistake. "I remember now I wanted those two reds together in the fall."

It was extraordinary to go back through all those photographs and realize that one person with a helper now and then had planted all these wonderful plants - ferns, hellebores, hydrangeas, camellias, azaleas, rhododendons, viburnums, kerria, flowering apricot, cherry trees, spirea, bulbs, clematis, poppies, roses, iris, ginkgo, epimedium, hostas, daphnes, pieris, michelia, Confederate jasmine, bottlebrush buckeye, phlox, Japanese maples, pieris, crocosmia, daylilies, foxgloves, lamb's ear, ajuga and on and on.

After she had looked at the photographs for at least an hour, she turned to me and said, "You know, I couldn't wait until morning when I'd go out and see what was in bloom.  I just loved it.  I don't understand it.  Why would anyone want to go on a cruise when they could go out and garden every day?"  Something to contemplate.

One hydrangea lost, another found

The mystery of the hydrangea is solved.  As soon as I saw the beige truck pull up late yesterday afternoon, it dawned on me.  I should have realized who would have had the strength and necessary help to load and unload a giant hydrangea that weighed a ton.

I can never tell a straight story, but I must set this up.  One December, a well-known Atlanta garden designer gave me permission to hire two of her crew to do some major cleaning out around my then 95-yea-old mother's house.  After they had finished, I showed them all around the farm (I remember a huge owl flew right in front of us as we were going down the lane to the shoals).  They thought it was a wonderful place, even in winter.

On the first Sunday in June, the two men appeared at my door, just as I was walking out to go to church.  "May we plant a vegetable garden at the farm?," they asked.  It was already late to be planting, but I said yes.  The next thing I knew, a big swath of bottom land had been cleared, a deer fence erected and the ground plowed.  Amazingly, there was a pretty good crop of squash, corn and tomatoes that year.

They've since come every year, and now have two huge vegetable gardens.  They've also planted lots of flowers and shrubs, which my mother would have loved.  The great thing is they keep me supplied with Silver Queen corn, cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash, okra and fun things like peanuts.

I had mentioned one time a couple of years ago that I thought Mother's hydrangea was in too much sun and that I wished I could have it at my house.  I never thought about it again.  This hydrangea had the most beautiful, dark purple blooms every year.  One June, I took a bunch up to Tate, Georgia, where my husband is buried in his family's cemetery.  Purple was his favorite color, and these were such big blooms that were almost jewel-tone.

So, the two men had remembered that I wanted the hydrangea, so they dug it last weekend, put black soil around it - the kind you'd expect to see in a nursery quality plant - and brought it here.  I didn't recognize it, because it looks so much bigger out of the ground.  They obviously got all of the root system.

Now the dilemma.  Do I leave it out of the ground and see if it has dark purple blooms, or shall I plant it and see what happens?  I'm thinking I might experiment and wait until fall to put it in a permanent place.

But what of the white hydrangea pictured above?  This is Hydrangea macrophylla 'Margaret Moseley', shown in Margaret's garden.  A local nurseryman saw it several years ago and asked to propagate it.  A lot of lucky people bought the hydrangea.

But then the nursery announced that it was closing.  I made a frantic call and asked them to save ten plants for me.  I called a few days later to say I was coming for them, and they told me the bad news.  Someone had mistakenly sold my plants, and there weren't any left.

I am going out to Margaret's on Friday (I'm glad to say she's improving and is laughing and joking again).  I know where two of these hydrangeas are planted.  I hope they are still there (Margaret moves things around so much; who knows?).  If so, I happen to ride around with bricks in the trunk of my car, and I may try to pull down some branches to layer (a method of rooting by scraping a limb and making a dent in the soil and then holding it down with a heavy object;  when it's rooted, it can be cut from the mother plant).

At least three decades ago, Margaret bought this lovely white hydrangea at a small nursery that no longer exists.  It was unmarked, and so far, no one has been able to identify it.  It's not 'Sister Theresa', and it's not 'Mme. Emile Mouliere'.  For the time being, it's H. macrophylla 'Margaret Moseley' until we know better.  I just want to make sure I have one.  It would look great next to my mother's beautiful plant.