Camellia sasanqua x reticulata 'California Dawn'

Camellia 'California Dawn' brings together two very different parents to make a large, generous flower for the far end of the year. A cross between the autumn-blooming Japanese Camellia sasanqua and the big, tender, large-flowered Camellia reticulata of Yunnan, this hybrid opens wide light-pink blooms, semi-double to loose peony form, the petals crimped and waved like crepe paper. The flowers arrive in fall and early winter, when the garden has mostly finished, and this camellia has grown and performed well in the Woodlanders garden.

The plant is a registered cultivar with a clear pedigree: raised by Nuccio's Nurseries of Altadena, California, the seedling first bloomed in 1982 and was registered in 1989. From the sasanqua side come the early, autumn flowering and an easy tolerance of sun; from the reticulata side, the sheer size of the bloom and a measure of tenderness. The name reticulata means net-veined, for the fine netting on the leaves; sasanqua comes straight from the Japanese sazanka. The genus itself honors Georg Josef Kamel, the Jesuit botanist whom Linnaeus commemorated.

Give 'California Dawn' the standard camellia treatment with one nod to the reticulata blood: dappled shade to a fair amount of sun, acidic and humus-rich soil kept moist but well-drained, a cooling mulch, and shelter from hard winter wind, since the large-flowered Chinese parent makes this hybrid best in USDA zones 8 and 9. Growth is vigorous and upright, filling in faster than most camellias, so allow room for a substantial evergreen shrub.

A large pink camellia in bloom in November is a genuinely useful thing, and 'California Dawn' plays the part well: an evergreen specimen or informal screen that flowers when the borders have gone quiet, handsome against a sheltered wall, and easy in the company of azaleas, pieris, and other acid-soil evergreens. Grow this one for the season it keeps, the loose, crepe-petaled pink flowers lighting the short days when little else will.