Oodles of camellias

Camellia
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

My friend Dave knows that I dig gardening and sent me a text message to let me know that his camellia bushes were in bloom and suggested that I stop by to see them.

I stopped in after work today and was blown away. Dave must have close to 150 different camellia bushes tucked into his yard!

They were all there when he bought the house in the early 1990s. Apparently the house used to belong to Bill and Birdie Carroll (sp?). Dave says that Bill was a horticulture professor at UF, which explains all of the camellias.

At any rate, the place was just amazing. Dave let me take several blooms home, and I took a few photos of other ones around the yard.

Here are some close-up shots of the ones I took home, moving clockwise around the photo above. I don't know the cultivar names for any of them (sorry). You can click on each photo to see it bigger.

This one was cool because the variegation was so smooth--like when you work wet-on-wet with watercolors.



This one was jam-packed full of petals. At first I thought it was a cluster of several flowers, but it really is just one flower.



I think this one was my absolute favorite. It reminded me of a candy cane.



Here's another beautiful variegated variety.



And here's a deeper pink variegated variety.



I also took some photos while we were walking around his yard, though they're not that great. I took them with my phone and the light was fading, neither of which makes for great photos.

Here's another candy cane one.



And look at this one! It had red stamens! I've never seen anything like this before on a camellia.



I couldn't get over how uniformly the petals aligned on this one.



And here's one last vignette. Dave floats the blooms that fall to the ground in his birdbath, changing out the colors and styles of blooms as he sees fit.