This area is below my lower garden, and it didn’t become the Camellia garden until this year (2024). Up until this year, I had it grouped in with my Edgewood Garden (post coming soon). I decided to give this area its own name this year. It’s pretty lackluster right now because I have had to focus on getting other areas up and going, but I am hoping it looks a lot better for spring/summer 2025.
The first thing I planted in this area was actually my pomegranate tree that I had in a pot at the garage bed. I’d had this tree for quite a few years, and 2021 was the first year it flowered with it being in the ground finally!
However, no fruit was produced, and each year, an expected frost would zap flower buds in the springtime, so I eventually got tired of messing with it, dug it up, and tossed it.
The next thing to get planted was my Pearl Maxwell camellia, April 2021.
In summer 2021, I planted some zinnias and petunias in the area. Of course, the chamberbitter did fantastic. 😠And yes, that is a watermelon plant in the bottom of the picture. I had hoped it would grow and fill out the embankment with the foliage but it never did.
The only problem with the Pearl Maxwell camellia is frost makes the flowers look terrible. It was blooming in March 2022, but we had some frost that even the frost cloth didn’t help with.
In 2023, I put up this shepherd’s hook I had, and I tried growing tomatillos beside another newly planted camellia (that isn’t really visible in the picture).
The tomatillos didn’t do well, but I’m sure it’s partly to do with neglect in this area last year. I had also planted a George Tabor Azalea to the right of the tomatillos, but that azalea died for some reason.
The end of July 2024…. SO MANY WEEDS! I honestly can’t keep up with the weeds at this house. If it weren’t for the weeds everywhere, these hanging baskets of moss roses would be spectacular! I’m normally not a fan of the moss roses you see in garden centers, but I wanted something DROUGHT TOLERANT for my baskets. I started these from seeds.
Like I said, this area is pretty lackluster now and rather sad-looking. Two of the camellias aren’t doing super great (neglect and who knows what else!). I did do some general cleanup of the area last month, so it’s a start.
Here’s to hoping next year it looks a little better, and the camellias don’t die on me. A list of what’s planted in this area (though it doesn’t look it):
- Camellia – Jury’s Yellow (I’ve had this one since the previous house and have NEVER seen it bloom.)
- Camellia – Pearl Maxwell
- Camellia – Tom Herrin