By Traude Gomez Rhine
CONTRIBUTOR
Visitors to the Camellia Show taking place Valentine’s weekend at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, can view the stunning new camellia ‘Ferris Wheel,’ a C. japonica boasting large white flowers with spokes of red that’s making its debut in 2016. They can also delight in the cultivar ‘Barbara Goff,’ an example of a beautiful C. Reticulata hybrid. Perhaps the most poignant display will be the cultivar ‘Julius Nuccio,’ characterized by its large semi-double flowers with bright crimson-colored petals; it’s named for Julius Nuccio, co-founder of Altadena’s Nuccio’s Nursery, renowned growers of rare camellias and azaleas since 1935, who died in January.
These and hundreds more gorgeous blooms will compete for top honors during the 44th Annual Camellia Show on Saturday and Sunday, Feb.13 and 14. The two-day event, co-sponsored by the Southern California Camellia Society, is open to the public and included with general Huntington admission.
“We are celebrating the 44th anniversary of collaboration between the Southern California Camellia Society and The Huntington,” says Bradford King, president of the society, which he says is comprised of local growers from San Diego to Bakersfield, with the majority of its members from the Los Angeles region. Since 1946 the Southern California Camellia Society has provided a gathering place for camellia lovers and hobbyists to meet to share information and spread their love for the elegant flowers.
February and March are the months when camellias come into their own and participants will exhibit their best, biggest, and most beautiful camellias in a variety of categories. The category “Trays of Five” will feature five uniform flowers of the same variety while “Nuccio’s Tray of Six” will celebrate Nuccio’s Nursery with a display of camellias introduced by the growers.
The show also gives home gardeners a chance to learn what’s new in the world of camellias and discover new varieties to grow in their own gardens. Experts at the event will discuss camellia care and cultivation, and demonstrate pruning, disbudding, grafting, and other techniques.
The show’s accompanying plant sale will feature a wide assortment of distinct cultivars in various sizes.
In addition to what’s on exhibit in the show, more than 10 acres of camellias are blooming in The Huntington’s Japanese and Chinese gardens and the North Vista area. Nestled under the oaks and deodars are nearly 1,200 individual camellia plants, representing some 80 different camellia species—sasanqua, japonica, reticulata, hiemalis, rusticana, vernalis, and tunghinensis, to name just a few—and more than 1,200 cultivated varieties. Among them is Camellia japonica ‘Henry E. Huntington,’ named for the institution’s founder. The large pink, semi-double camellia, hybridized by Nuccio’s Nursery, was introduced in 1994 in honor of The Huntington’s 75th anniversary.
The most historic individual plant in the Huntington collection is C. japonica ‘California,’ believed to be the oldest surviving camellia on record in Southern California. This specimen arrived on a tramp steamer as an unnamed seedling in 1888 and had two previous homes before being donated to The Huntington in 2003. Visitors can find its large rose-red flowers on the east side of the road between the Library and the North Vista fountain.
