Camellia Club of Mobile Inc.Newsletter Vol. VIII Issue 3 Dec 2011

Members: Join us for our Club’s Christmas Party and Auction!

The December 11th Meeting will be our annual Christmas Party, with holiday meats being provided by the Club and all the yummy side dishes and desserts being provided by our members. This is always a very entertaining meeting and we would like to invite our members to come and join us in celebrating the festive season. If you have a favorite holiday dish, do bring it along to share – the more food the merrier! Jim Oates and his elf will be running the Christmas Auction, all proceeds to benefit the Club, so have your wallet or checkbook handy – there will be some nice goodies at this year’s Auction. All food should be at the Botanical Gardens at 2:00 p.m. so we can start our feast no later than 2:30 p.m. Our heartfelt thanks to all the members who have generously agreed to bring dishes and decorate the tables – you are all such kind, caring people!........................................................................................................................................................

Florence Crowder’s “Antique Camellias” program

The November Meeting was well attended with a very attentive group of members on hand to listen to Florence Crowder’s program on Antique Camellias which are camellias named prior to 1900. It was most interesting and we are grateful that Florence came all the way from Denham Springs, LA, to make her presentation for us. Camellias are flowers with a powerful influence, to get a person to travel through three states to give a talk on them! Don’t forget that there will be two awards for Antique Camellias at our January 2012 Show, courtesy of Florence. So check your older blooms against the Nomenclature Book, I’m sure the majority of us have at least one qualifier.

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BOEHM PORCELAIN CAMELLIA “HELEN BOWER”

Don’t forget about the gorgeous Boehm porcelain camellia “Helen Bower” which has been donated by Robert Moore and Larry Heard for the Club Raffle which will take place at the close of the January 2012 Camellia Show – tickets are $2.00 each or 3 for $5.00. Tickets are available at our Meetings or from Martha Terry, our Treasurer. This lovely ornament can be seen at Robert Moore’s Christmas Village – if you feel like you’re not quite in the holiday mood, drop in to see Robert and Larry – their shop will really bring out your Christmas spirit, it’s quite magical.

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Upcoming Camellia Shows......

10 December 2011 – Pensacola Camellia Club. The Wright Place 1st Methodist Church, Wright St. Pensacola FL. Open to public 2 p.m. Blooms may be entered between 7:00 and 11:00 a.m.

17 December 2011 – Northshore Camellia Club. St. Scholastica’s Academy Gymnasium, 122 N. Massachusetts St. Covington, LA. Open to public 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Blooms may be entered between 8 and 10:30 a.m.

Both these Clubs will be delighted to welcome your camellia entries in their Shows. You’ll see lots of familiar faces at each of these Shows.

The Pensacola Show is one of the oldest in our area and the Covington Show is one of the newest – both great Shows!

The first Show of the year at Fort Walton Beach was a great success with lots of blooms, several of our Club members participated. It was amazing to see so many lavender and purple flowers, (the result of gibbing and cold, I’m told) but quite fascinating. Elaine & Jim Smelley’s new as-yet-unnamed reticulata seedling was knock-your-socks-off gorgeous, retic fans were positively drooling over it! Lovely show, so nice to see everyone again.

We also went to the Mississippi Gulf Coast Camellia Show in Gulfport. Again, a very well-attended show with loads of elegant blooms. We have already started a list of varieties that we would like to graft in February - that lady who said “you can never be too rich or too thin” was quite wrong – she really should have said that “you can’t have too many camellias”! A camellia Show is the best place to find out what you want to fill in the gaps in your collection. Every Show I go to I find several camellias I haven’t seen before, and most of them are not brand-new varieties.