the camellia journal

The Gulf South seldom experiences snow, but twice in the last ten years, a strip of Louisiana a few miles wide—extending from just west of Hammond and to Pearl River—saw six or more inches of heavy wet snow. While many in more northern states have their camellia plants out in the snow, they generally are not yet blooming, or they have them protected in reinforced greenhouses, often heated to keep snow from accumulating on the visqueen or shade cloth covers of more southern structures. Camellias in profusion in the snow are indeed a rarity. Nine years ago, my wife, Stephanie, when seeing the flakes coming down exclaimed “it’s big snow”, describing the large wet flakes. A Californian by birth and a southerner all her life, Stephanie only experienced real snow in the South only once before, back in 1963. That proved to be a unique treat at Camellia Heaven as touches of red and pink blooms peeked out from under snowy caps. It may be strange to walk on a carpet of snow looking for beautiful flowers, but it makes a white Christmas season even more spectacular when trees are decorated by nature with red, pink and variegated natural ornaments. The wet snow, despite its beauty, took a heavy toll on that strip of Louisiana. The first big snow collapsed several of Jim Campbell’s greenhouses and Windmill Nursery had some level of collapse with 90 of its 120 greenhouses. Other nurseries in that strip also experienced various amount of damage. Camellia Heaven had no greenhouses at that time, but the last snow caused the big house to lean over, and the pipes along the sides to bend to the ground. The smaller propagation house suffered no damage. Campbell and others also experienced damage again. The beauty of heavy wet snow has its flaws. While great for snowballs and sleigh rides, the weight of the snow on the big, thick covering of green leaves placed the branches of camellia plants in danger of bowing over and breaking. Shaking the snow off all the camellia plants was not practical, so many branches succumbed to the extra strain. Several at Camellia Heaven never regained their more upright stature. The weight also caused branches of the stately pines and other types of trees to snap, crashing down from 40 plus feet onto the camellias and breaking branches. Quick action on these broken branches can produce “lemonade from lemons” by rescuing any hardened new growth for sticking (or preserved for grafting). Camellia Heaven’s camellias weathered the hours of accumulating heavy snow and freezing temperatures and rebounded after both events, blooming in profusion. Some plants retained their newly reshaped stature. Resiliency is a wonderful characteristic of camellias. Unlike flood waters that stay around for days or weeks, the slowly melting snow seldom causes root rot (it takes about seven inches of snow to equal one inch of rain). Seeing hundreds (if not thousands) of camellias in the snow was a twice in a lifetime experience at Camellia Heaven (so far)—and a beautiful one on both occasions.