Camellia Club of Mobile  Newsletter  Volume VI -  Issue  7

CLUB CELEBRATES ITS 70^th YEAR IN STYLE!

The March 2010 Meeting saw many members of the Club joining together to celebrate our 70^th anniversary with a great party at the Mobile Botanical Gardens.  Carolyn Oyler and her band of dedicated helpers put on a super spread, complete with birthday cake!  Your Newsletter editor was unable to attend, but reports of the festivities were all very favorable with everyone thoroughly enjoying themselves.  The appearance of our Vice-President Floyd Hamburg was greeted with delight by all present,  Floyd, as you know, has being battling a dangerous health problem for some months but is now well on the way to a complete recovery, thank goodness.  Descriptions of all the food that was provided sounded absolutely delicious, I think some members are still drooling over the luscious shrimp brought by Larry Heard!  I hear there were more outdoor blooms at this party than at our 2010 Show!  Plus everyone loved all the waxed camellias they got to take home. All in all, it was a very pleasant social gathering with good food and great company celebrating a common interest in one of nature’s loveliest creations, the camellia.

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APRIL 11^th MEETING – summer care – photo competition - elections

Don’t forget to attend our next Meeting which will be held at the Mobile Botanical Gardens on April 11^th, at 2 p.m. with the meeting to start at 2:30 p.m.  after a social half-hour.  Our program will give  advice and tips on how to provide the very best care for your camellias during the summer months.  Information from our experts will help you get your plants in tip-top shape for  really splendid blooms during the 2010-2011 season. 

The annual Photo Competition will also take place with members present voting for their favorite photo in each of the four following categories:

1.        Best camellia bloom                                 2.   Best camellia in arrangement

3.        Best camellia in the landscape            4.   Best camellia bloom or plant with people

Photos can be any size, color or black & white.  Prizes will be awarded to the four winners!

Since this is the final meeting of the 2009/2010 season there will also be the usual Election of Officers and Board Members for the coming 2010/2011 season.   We do not hold Meetings during the summer months.  All members will receive a packet of information at the end of August, detailing the Club’s planned programs  and events for the next season which will start in September 2010.  Looking forward to seeing everyone at this last meeting of this season.        

CAMELLIA CHAT………………                                                                                    

If you are still not convinced about global warming, you might like to take a look at the Tregothnan website in U.K. – this is a large estate that has been in the same family since 1335, part in Cornwall and the other part in Kent.  After experimenting for 7 years they are now producing tea for sale!  Saw on the television a demonstration of an “English Tea Ceremony” package they are thinking of marketing, complete with their home-grown tea, clotted cream, strawberry jam and a scone, to be sent out chilled to places like Japan!  Tregothnan also does private guided tours of its estate in Cornwall.

Another website that might be of interest is the one on Chiswick House, built in 1813 by the Duke of Devonshire, and now looked after by English Heritage.  In the gardens is a 330 ft long glass and iron conservatory completely used for camellias.  Some of these camellias are the original ones planted in the l820’s by the Duke.  I visited there several years ago, just when the U.K. members of the International Camellia Society  were starting a prolonged battle to save the sickly plants in the deteriorating conservatory, these camellias had suffered over the years including having  all the glass blown out of the structure during WWII.  I almost didn’t get in last week to see how work had progressed, since the place was closed to the public while major path and garden reconstructions were being done around the conservatory which has already been magnificiently repaired. However, after walking onto the construction site like I was supposed to be there, I found a delightful lady from English Heritage who took me through to the conservatory and left me to take all the photos I wanted of the absolutely magnificient huge camellias blooming there.  It definitely  proved that camellias, even ones l70 years old, will grow and bloom given some care, even after years of horrendous neglect.  If you get to London anytime, do pay a visit to this lovely place, the work will be finished by this summer and the gardens open to all. Chiswiick is used to Americans, Thomas Jefferson visited and may even have modeled  Monticello after Chiswick House….