the camellia journal

Out of hurricane ruins came a beautiful camellia garden and the seeds of a magnificent camellia preservation effort.

It must have been a most depressing and frustrating time. 

In 1995, John and Stephanie Grimm of Metairie, Louisiana, were staying in a friend’s house temporarily. Their own home had been flooded for the third time, and they were faced with the clean up, reconstruction, repair and the inevitable surprises that occur after major damage to a home. 

One thing at their temporary home caught John’s eye: a 20-foot tree blooming plant with beautiful pink blooms in the dead of winter. John, a native of New York, had never seen a camellia and certainly not that old favorite, ‘Pink Perfection’. 

Hypnotized by the little green tree with the perfect pink blooms, John determined to learn more about camellias and to grow them at his own home. Shortly thereafter, John and Stephanie attended their first camellia show, given by the Camellia Club of New Orleans, and the bait was taken. They were hooked on camellias.

As with many novice growers, they soon found that the same five or six varieties appear from the same ten or twelve sources each year. After exhausting the ‘Professor Sargent’ / ‘Debutante’/ ‘Yuletide’ circuit often available through garden

centers, the Grimms began exploring nearby nurseries.

At that point, perhaps they had a copy of the Camellia Nomenclature and were looking beyond the phone book for nearby

nurseries. The legendary nursery of Sam and Ferol Zerkowsky in nearby Slidell came to their attention but, like others before them, they were discouraged to find that Tammia Nursery was no more. It had been sold and bulldozed into a subdivision

camellias scattered all about, countless varieties uprooted and destroyed and perhaps lost forever.

The Grimms were not to be deterred. Traveling across the south, Stephanie began a photo documentary of their camellia finds. From private gardens, public places, nurseries and those secret gardens that must be sought out as great prizes with those rare and seldom documented camellias now forgotten or ignored, Stephanie and John began a quest that soon became a mission: If only in photos, these camellias would be preserved for future generations.

Visiting a small, one-man nursery in Bush, Louisiana, near their home in Metairie, the Grimms met Webb Hart. Webb was faced with an all too familiar dilemma: No one wanted to take over his nursery, but developers wanted the land.

A former mayor of nearby Slidell, Webb had worked along with others, including Homer Fritchie and John Geiser, to have Slidell named the “Camellia City.”

It is easy to visualize the scene, the couple standing with a man who knew that his life’s work hung in the balance: a man torn by attempting to decide to be a party to destroying his own legacy.

The Grimms were depressed by this news, another “garden” on the verge of destruction. There were approximately 2,000 camellias about 600 varieties in the nursery, and they would be bulldozed away and cleared for another subdivision as Tammia Nursery had been.

This was unacceptable to John and Stephanie and within 14 days, they had acquired Webb’s nursery, and it was to become their “Camellia Heaven.” What camellia enthusiast hasn’t wanted a large tree-shaded refuge to plant row after row of camellias with walks and nooks and private places to sit among the beautiful blooms and be at peace? Or to enjoy the sound of the winter wind murmuring high above in the pines or sit among the shiny evergreens and watch the summer breeze sway the Spanish moss on the oaks?

Then in August of 2005, perhaps the most catastrophic hurricane in U.S. history came ashore at New Orleans. Katrina did not spare the town of Bush and its camellias.

Seeking the best advice on how to save their camellias, the Grimms prevailed on Tom Johnson, then horticulturist for the American Camellia Society at Massee Lane Gardens, to evaluate the situation: over 200 trees down, pine, oak, gum trees and assorted other debris blocking roads, and paths and crushed camellias beneath what had been their protective cover. Tom and the Grimms worked to salvage what they could with as little additional loss and damage as they could manage.

Broken trees were lifted, not pushed when possible, crushed shrubs were pruned and sealed if any hope remained of saving them. Still, after a natural disaster, community priorities must be accorded first call on resources, water is often in short supply, electricity takes weeks to reconnect, and the services of those with heavy equipment and skills at logging and lumbering are often bid upon feverishly as homeowners and businesses attempt to recover some sense of a normal life.

Hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars later, “Camellia Heaven” reflects the work and love that John and Stephanie Grimm have put into their own little corner of paradise. It is now a private garden with more than 1,800 varieties of camellias in the collection. At last count, more than 500 were being grown off site and more are planned for each year.

John and Stephanie do not sell plants but are often called upon with questions such as “Have you seen a (fill in the blank) anywhere in your travels?” Recently they have helped the Pensacola Camellia Club find two elusive varieties that were originated by Pensacola growers.

The Grimms are also actively involved with preservation and maintenance work at the Hody Wilson Garden in Hammond, Louisiana. They are currently Tangipahoa Master Gardeners and are members of numerous camellia groups, clubs and societies.

The Grimms are quick to stress that with so much already done to their own property, there is still more to do. Camellia Heaven is a success with an even brighter future ahead.

It is a rewarding work being constantly improved.