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.