{"title":"Theaceae","description":"\u003cp\u003eTheaceae is the tea family, and the name is earned twice over. The plant that gives us the word, \u003cem\u003eCamellia sinensis\u003c\/em\u003e, is a member, and every cup of green, black, white, and oolong tea on earth is drawn from a single evergreen shrub in this family. Around that one economically vast species gathers a company of the most admired ornamentals in the temperate world, held together by a shared signature: bowl-shaped flowers built on five petals and a central boss of many stamens, carried on plants of glossy, substantial leaf.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe heart of the family, in gardens at least, is \u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e, named by Linnaeus for Georg Josef Kamel, the Moravian Jesuit who botanized in the Philippines at the close of the seventeenth century. The genus alone would fill a lifetime, from the winter-blooming \u003cem\u003ejaponica\u003c\/em\u003e and autumn \u003cem\u003esasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e that anchor Southern gardens to the wild species a serious collector hunts down, the fragrant \u003cem\u003elutchuensis\u003c\/em\u003e, the great-fruited \u003cem\u003egigantocarpa\u003c\/em\u003e, the tea plant itself. We keep more of these in circulation than almost any nursery in the country.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeyond the camellias the family opens out. \u003cem\u003eStewartia\u003c\/em\u003e brings small deciduous trees with white midsummer flowers, fierce fall color, and trunks of exfoliating, muscled bark that carry the winter garden. \u003cem\u003eFranklinia alatamaha\u003c\/em\u003e, found on the Altamaha River by the Bartrams in the 1760s and never seen wild since, survives only in cultivation, and every plant alive descends from that one collection. \u003cem\u003eGordonia\u003c\/em\u003e, the native loblolly bay, is a towering evergreen cousin, and rarer still are \u003cem\u003eSchima\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003ePolyspora\u003c\/em\u003e, and the strange intergeneric hybrids of Schima and Franklinia that only a handful of growers have ever raised.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat the family asks is fairly uniform: an acid, humus-rich, well-drained soil, shelter from hard wind, and a place in sun to part shade. Give them that and the tea family repays a garden across the whole calendar, in evergreen structure, in flowers that come when little else will bloom, and in fall color and bark when the deciduous kinds turn. Browse the named forms in our \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/camellias\"\u003eCamellias\u003c\/a\u003e, and find the larger trees and shrubs among our \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/large-shrubs\"\u003eLarge Shrubs\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"camellia-oleifera","title":"Camellia oleifera","description":"\u003cp\u003eThree things to know about this camellia. First, the tea-oil camellia is the most economically important non-tea member of the genus. China has cultivated \u003cem\u003eCamellia oleifera\u003c\/em\u003e for over two thousand three hundred years for the oil pressed from the seeds, a light, sweetish, monounsaturated cooking oil chemically close to olive oil (around eighty percent oleic acid in both), used for cooking, traditional cosmetics, hair tonics, and the historic rust-proofing of Japanese woodworking tools and chef's knives. Tea oil sits with olive, palm, and coconut among the four major woody oil crops on Earth. This is a working tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSecond, the tea-oil camellia is also the quiet foundation of cold-hardy camellia growing in North America, and almost no one knows it. In the late 1970s a run of brutal winters at the US National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. destroyed 941 of the 956 camellias in the collection. Among the handful that came through unharmed were specimens of \u003cem\u003eCamellia oleifera\u003c\/em\u003e. Dr. William Ackerman, then a research geneticist at the Arboretum, took notice, and beginning in 1979 crossed the cold-hardy species, especially the cultivar 'Lu Shan Snow', with \u003cem\u003eC. sasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eC. hiemalis\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eC. vernalis\u003c\/em\u003e. The resulting Winter Series hybrids, released in 1991 ('Polar Ice', 'Snow Flurry', 'Winter's Hope', 'Winter's Joy', 'Pink Icicle', 'Winter's Star', and others), are the reason camellias can now be grown reliably into USDA zone 6. Every fall-blooming Ackerman hybrid on the East Coast traces back to this one species.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThird, and this is the part most people miss on hearing the words tea-oil camellia, the plant is beautiful. Smooth, peeling, cinnamon-to-tan bark clothes mature trunks; the glossy, finely toothed, willow-textured leaves are evergreen; and single white flowers two to three inches across, sometimes flushed pink at the edge, open around a generous boss of golden stamens from October into January, carrying a soft sweet fragrance unusual among fall-blooming camellias. Spent petals drop individually, the trait growers call self-grooming, so the plant never slumps into the brown decay that troubles many older japonicas. Slow-growing and eventually ten to twenty feet over decades, the tea-oil camellia builds into a multi-trunked large shrub or a small tree, depending on the pruning.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA plant for the gardener building a tea garden beside a \u003cem\u003eCamellia sinensis\u003c\/em\u003e, for the collector after the species behind every modern cold-hardy hybrid, or for anyone in zone 6 or 7 wanting a fragrant, fall-flowering evergreen with documented winter survival to fifteen below zero. A genuinely useful plant masquerading as a beautiful one, or the reverse, depending on which side you come at it from.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057822568563,"sku":"CAME-OLEI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-307.jpg?v=1720136871"},{"product_id":"camellia-fraterna","title":"Camellia fraterna","description":"\u003cp\u003eCamellia fraterna is a camellia stripped back to wild beginnings, a species from the hills of eastern China far removed from the big, blowsy blooms of the garden japonicas and sasanquas. Where those carry a few large flowers, this one covers slender, upright branches in a snowfall of small, single, white flowers, faintly pink outside and softly fragrant, that arch the stems with their sheer number. The small, pointed evergreen leaves and open, airy habit give the plant an easy, natural grace.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is a plant more prized by camellia breeders and collectors than known to the wider trade. Camellia fraterna belongs to a group of small-flowered, fragrant species, and hybridizers have used the plant to pass on both traits, standing behind charming miniatures such as 'Tiny Princess'. The genus name honors Georg Kamel, the Jesuit pharmacist, and the species name fraterna means brotherly, likely for a close kinship to related species, though the botanist who named the plant left no note of his reasoning.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike most woodland camellias, Camellia fraterna is happiest in dappled to part shade, in acid, humus-rich soil kept moist but well drained and lightly mulched. Bloom comes in late winter into spring, early enough to lift the tail of the cold season, and the plant is slow and steady rather than rushed. Hardy to roughly USDA zone 8, this species suits the milder South and sheltered spots in cooler gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor the collector, the fragrance gardener, or anyone drawn to camellias in their wilder form, Camellia fraterna offers something the showy hybrids cannot, an abundance of small, scented, honest flowers on a graceful frame. Use the shrub in a woodland border, a shaded mixed planting, or a camellia collection, where the arching, flower-laden branches read as quietly elegant. Uncommon in cultivation, this species is a find worth seeking out.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057822601331,"sku":"CAME-FRAT-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/CamelliafraternaOnlinePlantGuide.jpg?v=1784299610"},{"product_id":"camellia-sasanqua-x-reticulata-california-dawn","title":"Camellia sasanqua x reticulata 'California Dawn'","description":"\u003cp\u003eCamellia '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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGive '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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057822666867,"sku":"CAME-SASA-RETI-CALI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1345.jpg?v=1720136877"},{"product_id":"camellia-japonica-imura","title":"Camellia japonica 'Imura'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Imura' is a refined white form of \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e, grown for elegant semi-double pure white flowers set against narrow, glossy evergreen leaves. The clean white bloom and slightly fine-textured foliage give the plant a quiet, luminous presence in shade, a contrast to the heavier reds and pinks that dominate the genus.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe flowers open in late winter, when the cool-season garden most wants light, the white petals loose and semi-double around a center of soft yellow stamens. Like most camellias, 'Imura' is at finest in semi-shade, in sandy, slightly acidic soil kept mulched and watered, where the upright evergreen frame holds the year and the flowers read with particular clarity against a dark background.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057822765171,"sku":"CAME-JAPO-IMUR-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1293.jpg?v=1720136879"},{"product_id":"camellia-japonica-jurys-yellow","title":"Camellia × williamsii 'Jury's Yellow'","description":"\u003cp\u003eBred by Les Jury in New Plymouth, New Zealand, first flowered in 1971 and registered in 1976, 'Jury's Yellow' is the camellia that finally cracked the yellow code, or came as close as Western breeders could get before the Chinese yellow species (\u003cem\u003eCamellia nitidissima\u003c\/em\u003e) made the leap from botanical archive to nursery bench. Jury worked only with white \u003cem\u003ejaponicas\u003c\/em\u003e, betting that the gold of the stamens could be coaxed to bleed into the petaloids at a flower's center. The bet paid off. The result is an anemone-form bloom, nine clean white petals cupped around a thick boss of cream-yellow petaloids, the color of fresh butter rather than crayon yellow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStrictly speaking this is less a yellow camellia than a white camellia with a yellow heart, and that is the version with staying power. 'Gwenneth Morey' and 'Brushfield's Yellow' came out of Australia around the same time, yet 'Jury's Yellow' still turns up on the honors tables at the National Camellia Show in China nearly fifty years after registration. Among Les Jury's introductions, this was also one of the first to be self-grooming: the spent blooms drop cleanly rather than turning to brown sludge on the bush, which sounds minor and is, in truth, the difference between a camellia that earns a place and one a gardener politely ignores for nine months a year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plant carries an upright, dense habit and dark glossy foliage, holding shape without much intervention and reading beautifully in winter against a pewter sky and bare-limbed trees. We have found 'Jury's Yellow' gracious in part shade, especially under the high canopy of pines or oaks, a forgiving anchor for a woodland border, a courtyard planting, or that particular gap beside a doorway that wants evergreen weight without volume. For the gardener who already has the reds and pinks and is ready for the quieter, more deliberate end of the camellia palette.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057822830707,"sku":"CAME-JAPO-JURY-YELL-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/BC1B208B-76DB-4655-81EC-D6E14E79BC4E.jpg?v=1771618213"},{"product_id":"camellia-x-williamsii-donation","title":"Camellia x williamsii 'Donation'","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e × \u003cem\u003ewilliamsii\u003c\/em\u003e 'Donation' is widely counted among the finest hybrid camellias ever raised, and a long-standing favorite in our own garden. The cross is between \u003cem\u003eCamellia saluenensis\u003c\/em\u003e and the old japonica 'Donckelaeri', made by Colonel Stephenson Clarke at Borde Hill in England; the \u003cem\u003ewilliamsii\u003c\/em\u003e group to which the plant belongs began with J.C. Williams at Caerhays, whose saluenensis crosses gave the genus a new hardiness and an unmatched freedom of bloom. 'Donation' carried that promise furthest, and the Royal Horticultural Society has long honored the plant with an Award of Garden Merit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the reason: large, semi-double, and a clear orchid-pink, up to four or five inches across, the petals threaded with faintly deeper pink veins around a center of gold stamens. Bloom comes in abundance through the mid and late season, late winter into spring, on an upright, vigorous evergreen frame clothed in glossy dark foliage. Like the better williamsii hybrids, 'Donation' drops the spent flowers cleanly rather than holding onto browning blooms, so the plant stays tidy through a long flowering.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrow 'Donation' in semi-shade, in sandy, slightly acidic soil kept mulched and watered, as a specimen, an informal screen, or the flowering anchor of a shaded border. A classic for good reason, and an easy, generous camellia for the gardener who wants proven performance with the bloom to match.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057822863475,"sku":"CAME-WILL-DONA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-312.jpg?v=1720136886"},{"product_id":"camellia-euryoides","title":"Camellia euryoides","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCamellia euryoides\u003c\/em\u003e offers a quiet counterpoint to the camellias most familiar to American gardeners. Where \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eCamellia sasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e have long defined the genus in cultivation here, those two represent only a sliver of a far broader Asian lineage. \u003cem\u003eC. euryoides\u003c\/em\u003e, a shrub or small tree of the subtropical forests of Fujian, Guangdong, and Jiangxi, belongs to that richer world of species camellias: subtler, finer in texture, and made for gardeners curious about the genus beyond its showiest forms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders gave the plant the common name Mockorange Camellia, a nod to an unusual character. The small leaves and the profuse, modestly scaled white flowers of early spring read more like a \u003cem\u003ePhiladelphus\u003c\/em\u003e than the bold, lacquered blooms most people expect of a camellia, and one of the real pleasures here is the quiet taxonomic surprise: many visitors do not recognize the shrub as a camellia at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe value lies in nuance rather than extravagance. Finer foliage lets the Mockorange Camellia settle naturally into woodland plantings, semi-shaded borders, and gardens where scale and leaf texture are weighed with care, the kind of place a broad-leaved evergreen would feel too heavy or too formal. What the plant gives instead is a restrained evergreen presence through the year, followed by a delicate early-spring flowering that reads with unusual clarity in shade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCulturally, the Mockorange Camellia asks for what most camellias want: semi-shade, sandy and slightly acidic soil, steady moisture, and a dependable layer of mulch. In those conditions the shrub rewards an attentive gardener twice over, as a lovely evergreen and as a reminder that camellias are far more varied, and far more interesting, than the standard garden palette suggests.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057823715443,"sku":"CAME-EURY-01G","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1129.jpg?v=1720136892"},{"product_id":"camellia-rosaeflora","title":"Camellia rosaeflora","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCamellia rosaeflora\u003c\/em\u003e is a graceful species camellia from China, one of the lesser-known kinds Woodlanders keeps in circulation for American gardeners. The habit is open and upright, the leaves small and fine for the genus, and in early spring the branches carry masses of small pink flowers, roughly an inch across and lightly double, in such profusion that the spent petals often fall to lay a soft pink carpet on the ground beneath.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe effect is quiet and charming rather than showy, a fine-textured change from the heavy formal doubles. Like most camellias, the rose-flowered camellia is at finest in semi-shade, in sandy, slightly acidic soil kept mulched and watered, where the airy frame and clouds of pink bloom light a shaded border. A lovely and uncommon species for the collector and for the gardener after something softer in the camellia season.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057824534643,"sku":"CAME-ROSA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-308.jpg?v=1720136895"},{"product_id":"camellia-crapnelliana","title":"Camellia crapnelliana","description":"\u003cp\u003eTwo camellias do most of the work in American gardens, \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eCamellia sasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e, in countless named forms. The Far East holds far more, and Woodlanders is among the few nurseries offering the lesser-known species to gardeners here. \u003cem\u003eCamellia crapnelliana\u003c\/em\u003e, the Crapnell camellia, is one of the most distinctive: a slow, upright evergreen first described from Hong Kong Island and named for the collector Crapnell.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe species is grown as much for bark and fruit as for bloom. Mature trunks peel and glow a warm cinnamon-red, a feature rare among camellias, and the large, dark green, finely toothed leaves give the plant real presence the year round. In late winter come the flowers: single and white, the broad petals faintly ruffled at the edge and gathered around a boss of golden stamens. They are followed by woody, globular seed capsules the size of a small orange, among the largest fruit in the whole genus.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike most camellias, the Crapnell camellia is happiest in semi-shade, in sandy, slightly acid soil kept mulched and watered, sheltered from hard freezes at the cold edge of zones 8 and 9. Site this plant where the cinnamon bark can be read at close range, by a path, an entry, or a courtyard wall, and underplant with ferns and other shade lovers that will not hide the trunk. A collector's evergreen, and a quiet piece of camellia history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057824632947,"sku":"CAME-CRAP-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/CamelliacrapnellianaWoodlanders.jpg?v=1730390731"},{"product_id":"camellia-edithae","title":"Camellia edithae 'Heimudan'","description":"\u003cp\u003eMost gardeners who grow camellias know two of them. \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e opens in winter, \u003cem\u003eC. sasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e in autumn, and between the two a practiced collector can have flowers from October through March. What happens in April is generally someone else's problem.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'Heimudan' solves that problem. A cultivar of \u003cem\u003eCamellia edithae\u003c\/em\u003e, a species from the forests of southeastern China little known in Western gardens, this plant blooms in mid to late spring, through April and into May, at the precise moment the last \u003cem\u003ejaponica\u003c\/em\u003e has finished and the garden is turning toward summer. The flowers are fully double and deep rose-red, carried at the stem tips with the density and formality the name promises. 'Heimudan' translates from Chinese as Dark Peony, accurate both as a description of the flower and as a statement of intent. The blooms are heat-tolerant in a way late-season \u003cem\u003ejaponica\u003c\/em\u003e flowers rarely manage, holding color and form through the warming days of spring rather than browning at the edges.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe foliage is the plant's other argument. \u003cem\u003eCamellia edithae\u003c\/em\u003e carries leaves unlike those of any other camellia in common cultivation: thick, leathery, and deeply furrowed along the veins, a strongly textured, almost sculptural surface. The undersides and the young stems are densely hairy, another trait that sets the species apart from the smooth-leaved \u003cem\u003ejaponica\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003esasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e types. This is a shrub worth growing for eleven months on foliage alone, and then flowering in the twelfth at a moment no other camellia reaches.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCamellia edithae\u003c\/em\u003e grows in forests between 200 and 1,000 meters across southeastern China, a range that has produced reasonable cold hardiness for the genus. 'Heimudan' was selected in Fujian Province in 1989 as a natural seedling. Woodlanders is among the very few nurseries making this camellia available to American gardeners, which is either a statement about obscurity or about priorities. We consider it both.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057824665715,"sku":"CAME-EDIT-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IMG-0266.heic?v=1775232481"},{"product_id":"camellia-lutchuensis","title":"Camellia lutchuensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eFragrance is the rarest thing in a camellia, and Camellia lutchuensis is the great exception, a species grown less for the size of the flower than for the scent that rises from it. The blooms are small, single, and white around a center of yellow stamens, carried in profusion on a twiggy, airy shrub, and they release a sweet, sometimes spicy perfume unusual in a genus famous for having almost none.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe name records the origin. Lutchu, or Loochoo, is an old Western rendering of the Ryukyu Islands, the long arc of subtropical islands south of Japan, and the species is native there and on Taiwan, reaching only the southernmost fringe of China around Guangxi and Hong Kong. Older nursery copy that files the plant simply as Chinese sells the truth short; the heart of the range is the Ryukyus. The genus itself honors Georg Josef Kamel, the Moravian Jesuit and pharmacist who botanized in the Philippines and whom Linnaeus chose to commemorate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmong camellia breeders this modest shrub is a celebrity, the fountainhead of nearly every fragrant hybrid in the trade. From the early 1960s onward, hybridizers crossed Camellia lutchuensis into garden camellias to carry the scent forward, and the parade of perfumed offspring runs long: 'Cinnamon Cindy,' 'Fragrant Pink,' 'High Fragrance,' 'Scentuous,' 'Sweet Emily Kate,' and many more, all tracing their fragrance to this one wild parent. Grown on its own roots, the species offers that heritage undiluted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCamellia lutchuensis is a touch tender, happiest in USDA zones 8 and 9, though sheltered forms have proven reasonably hardy to zone 7b, and north of that the twiggy, restrained habit takes well to a large pot that can winter under cover. Give the plant dappled shade and an acidic, moist, well-drained soil, and above all site the shrub where the nose will find it: beside a door, a path, or a window where the late-winter-into-spring scent can drift indoors. The flowers are small; the fragrance is the whole point.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057824731251,"sku":"CAME-LUTC-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1344.jpg?v=1720136914"},{"product_id":"camellia-x-cinnamon-cindy","title":"Camellia x 'Cinnamon Cindy'","description":"\u003cp\u003eTwo species of camellia are commonly grown in American gardens, \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eCamellia sasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e, and there are countless varieties of each. This plant is neither. 'Cinnamon Cindy' is a hybrid between \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e 'Kenyo-tai' and a Chinese species, \u003cem\u003eCamellia lutchuensis\u003c\/em\u003e, and the reason anyone made that cross is fragrance. \u003cem\u003eC. lutchuensis\u003c\/em\u003e is a small-flowered species from the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan carrying a scent that almost no garden camellia possesses, and breeders have spent decades trying to move that quality into plants with flowers worth looking at.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe result here is upright and relatively narrow, eight to ten feet in time on a three to six foot frame, with small light green leaves that emerge distinctly reddish and darken as they mature. Flowers are two to three inches across, rose-form and full-petaled, white with pink washing through the outer petals, and they come in the depths of winter. The scent is the point: warm and sweet, strongest on a mild afternoon, and genuinely rare in this genus. Anyone who has stood in a camellia garden in January wondering why such extravagant flowers smell of nothing at all will understand immediately what this plant is for.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders was one of the first to offer this hybrid, which we received some years ago from the U.S. National Arboretum. The Arboretum's camellia program has been among the most productive in the country, and the fragrant hybrids that came out of crossing \u003cem\u003eC. lutchuensis\u003c\/em\u003e with garden japonicas are one of its quieter successes. Camellias themselves belong to Theaceae, the tea family, and the same genus gives us \u003cem\u003eCamellia sinensis\u003c\/em\u003e and every cup of tea ever drunk, a piece of botanical geography most people never connect.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant in semi-shade in sandy, slightly acid soil, kept mulched and watered; morning sun with afternoon shade suits best. Because the flowers are small and the fragrance close-range, siting matters more than it does for a big showy japonica. Put this one beside a door, along a path you walk in winter, or under a window that gets opened on a mild day. Water consistently through late summer while next season's buds are forming, and prune, if at all, right after flowering. The narrow upright habit means very little pruning is needed. Good with \u003cem\u003eOsmanthus fragrans\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eChimonanthus praecox\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eDaphne odora\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eEdgeworthia chrysantha\u003c\/em\u003e for a planting where something is scented in every winter month.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057824895091,"sku":"CAME-CINN-CIND-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-311.jpg?v=1720136917"},{"product_id":"camellia-longicarpa","title":"Camellia longicarpa","description":"\u003cp\u003eMost American gardeners know two camellias, the winter-blooming Camellia japonica and the autumn-blooming Camellia sasanqua, each in a hundred named forms. Camellia longicarpa belongs to a different and far less familiar company: the small-flowered wild camellias of section Theopsis, scarcely grown on this side of the Pacific. Woodlanders remains one of the few nurseries offering these lesser-known species to gardeners who want the wild plant rather than the show cultivar.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to the ravine forests of Sichuan and western Hunan, where the plant grows as an understory shrub or small tree between roughly five hundred and seventeen hundred meters, this camellia carries slender, long-tipped leaves and small, waxy, cup-shaped white flowers, faintly fragrant, opening from late summer into autumn when almost no other camellia is in bloom. The name longicarpa means long-fruited, a nod to the unusually elongated seed capsule that sets the species apart from the rounder-fruited members of the group. Taxonomy here is unsettled; some botanists now treat Camellia longicarpa as a synonym of Camellia synaptica, and both names lead to the same slender white-flowered plant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe genus honors Georg Josef Kamel, the Moravian Jesuit and pharmacist who botanized in the Philippines and whom Linnaeus chose to commemorate, though Kamel never laid eyes on a camellia. Like the rest of the clan, this species asks for the classic camellia site: dappled shade, shelter from harsh sun and drying wind, and an acidic, humus-rich soil kept moist but never waterlogged. The forest-ravine origin is the whole instruction, a plant of cool, leafy, half-lit places.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is no tea and no seed oil to claim here; despite the famous economic cousins in the genus, Camellia longicarpa is purely an ornamental for the collector and the shade garden. The reward is quieter and rarer than a japonica in full flush: fine, airy foliage on a graceful small tree, and a scatter of scented white cups in the shortening days of late summer, a camellia that flowers when the others have long since finished. For the gardener who already grows the common two and wants the wild original, this is a plant to seek out and a species to help keep in cultivation.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057824927859,"sku":"CAME-LONG-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-306.jpg?v=1720136920"},{"product_id":"camellia-japonica-kujaku-tsubaki","title":"Camellia japonica 'Kujaku Tsubaki'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe name means peacock camellia, and the vanity here is all in the foliage. Long, narrow leaves with peculiar fishtailed tips drape from the branches in a pronounced weeping habit, more willow than camellia, more Japanese woodblock print than Southern border. This is not the camellia a grandmother grew.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost \u003cem\u003ejaponica\u003c\/em\u003e cultivars spend their lives chasing the perfect bloom. 'Kujaku Tsubaki' went a different way. Originating in Mikawa, in Aichi Prefecture, and documented in \u003cem\u003eCamellia Cultivars of Japan\u003c\/em\u003e as early as 1966, the plant belongs to a small lineage of Japanese selections grown as much for architectural habit and leaf as for flower. Where most camellias stand dense and upright, this one arches and trails, the foliage suggestive of a \u003cem\u003eSalix\u003c\/em\u003e or a peach in full leaf, the kind of plant a visitor stops to identify before noticing the flowers at all. The narrow leaves often carry faint yellow markings from a benign, long-established virus, part of the peacock effect.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the flowers do come, they are tubular and deeply red, the petals splashed with irregular white, restrained and almost demure against the extravagance of everything else on the plant. They hang pendulous from the branches, never upright.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrowth is slow, a direct consequence of that weeping habit, but given time 'Kujaku Tsubaki' can reach small-tree proportions. This is a camellia for the gardener willing to wait, and patient enough to have grown past needing the flower to do all the work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057824993395,"sku":"CAME-JAPO-KUJA-TSUB-01G","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-305.jpg?v=1720136923"},{"product_id":"camellia-japonica-tama-no-ura","title":"Camellia japonica 'Tama no ura'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Tama no ura' is among the most celebrated of all wild-found camellias, and the story is part of the plant. In 1947 a charcoal worker came upon a single old \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e, by repute some two hundred years old, growing deep in the forest near Tamanoura on Fukue Island in the Goto archipelago, off Nagasaki. The flowers stopped him: single, bright red, and edged crisply in white, a clean picotee never before recorded in the wild. Selected and propagated from that one tree, the camellia was exhibited in Nagasaki in 1973 and carried to America by Nuccio's Nursery in 1975.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe bloom is simplicity itself, a single, bell-shaped flower of six bright red petals, each rimmed in a fine white margin, opening in late winter and early spring around a center of golden stamens. The effect is crisp and unmistakable, and the cultivar passes the trait on freely: 'Tama no ura' is the parent of a whole family of 'Tama' camellias bred for that picotee edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike the rest of the species, 'Tama no ura' wants semi-shade and sandy, slightly acidic soil kept mulched and watered, where the upright evergreen frame holds the year and the bordered flowers can be read at close range. A piece of camellia history, and one of the loveliest single flowers in the genus.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825124467,"sku":"CAME-JAPO-TAMA-NO-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1130.jpg?v=1720136926"},{"product_id":"camellia-sinensis-rosea","title":"Camellia sinensis 'Rosea'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Rosea' is a pink-flowered form of the tea plant, \u003cem\u003eCamellia sinensis\u003c\/em\u003e, the same species behind every cup of green, black, white, and oolong tea, here carrying soft pink flowers in place of the usual white and a reddish flush through the new foliage. The leaves still make tea, so this is an ornamental and a useful plant at once, a little prettier in flower than the straight species and just as willing in the garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSmall pink blooms with bright yellow stamens open in early fall, set against fine, willow-textured evergreen leaves on an upright, rounded frame. Like the species, the pink tea plant takes well to hedging, foundation use, or a large container, and the tender new flushes can be picked and brewed at home. Grow in sun to part shade in well-drained, acidic soil kept mulched and watered, and enjoy both the flower and the harvest.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825157235,"sku":"CAME-SINE-ROSE-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1109.jpg?v=1720136929"},{"product_id":"camellia-sasanqua-leslie-ann","title":"Camellia sasanqua 'Leslie Ann'","description":"\u003cp\u003eTwo Hall of Fame inductions hang on Leslie Ann's lineage, though neither is for a flower. The award stamped on her record, the Ralph Peer Sasanqua Award, carries the name of the man who in 1923 hauled recording equipment south to Atlanta and captured the first commercial sides of country and blues. Ralph Peer pioneered field recording and sits in both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame, then turned that same restless curatorial instinct on camellias late in life, founding the Los Angeles Camellia Society in 1948 and rising to president of the American Camellia Society by 1957. The man who recorded the Carter Family also decided which sasanquas deserved to be remembered. In 1961, one of them was this one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe is, despite the species name, an American plant. 'Leslie Ann' began as a chance seedling raised by Ray Davis of Mobile, Alabama, and first bloomed in 1954. Mobile is the right birthplace for her: the city has grown camellias since a single plant arrived from Liverpool in 1838, and more than a century later that obsession was still throwing seedlings worth naming. Davis grew his out, watched the first flowers open, and recognized what most chance seedlings never earn, a reason to keep going.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat he kept is a flower that resists being called simply pink or white. The bloom opens as a tight rosette and unfurls gradually to three and a half or four inches across, white washed with rose and finished at the petal edges in a fine lavender-pink line, around a center of yellow stamens. The edging reads almost like a picotee, drawn rather than brushed. An unusual lasting quality holds each bloom close to two weeks, with a few petals twisting as they age, so an established plant in full October bloom carries a layered, slightly windblown look rather than a flat uniform one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe habit is the quiet surprise. Where most sasanquas read as dense shrubs, 'Leslie Ann' grows open and upright, and gardeners who know her keep reaching for the same comparison: the Juniper Level Botanic Garden likens the plant to a flowering cherry far more than a camellia. That openness earns a use a stiffer shrub cannot, a narrow profile for a tight space, a candidate for espalier against a warm wall, or simply a specimen given room to throw her branches. She blooms when most of the garden has finished, from mid-fall into early winter, and does it on the year's old wood without fuss.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825222771,"sku":"CAME-SASA-LESL-ANN-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Camelliasasanqua_LeslieAnn_Woodlanders1.jpg?v=1731726758"},{"product_id":"camellia-sinensis","title":"Camellia sinensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is the tea plant. Not a tea plant but the tea plant. Every cup of green tea, black tea, white tea, oolong, and pu-erh on Earth comes from a single species, \u003cem\u003eCamellia sinensis\u003c\/em\u003e. The differences in flavor and color come from the timing of the harvest and the way the leaves are handled afterward: green tea from the youngest leaves, briefly steamed; white tea from the unopened buds; black tea from fully oxidized older leaves; oolong from partial oxidation. One plant, many fates.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePeople have cultivated the species in China for at least three thousand years. The native range is debated, somewhere in the borderlands where southwestern China meets Myanmar, northeast India, and the eastern Himalayas, but humans have moved the plant for so long that a clean point of origin is essentially impossible to recover. Tea began as Buddhist monastic practice, became court refinement, and is now the most-consumed beverage in the world after water. \u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e honors Georg Joseph Kamel, a seventeenth-century Moravian Jesuit who worked as a pharmacist and naturalist in the Philippines and wrote widely about Asian plants, though he never actually saw a tea plant; Linnaeus named the genus for him anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat admirers of the showy \u003cem\u003ejaponica\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003esasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e camellias do not always realize is that \u003cem\u003eCamellia sinensis\u003c\/em\u003e is a fine ornamental in its own right. The leaves are smaller, narrower, and more refined than the glossy paddles of the ornamental species, fine-toothed, deep green, with a willow-like texture. Small fragrant white flowers, each with a generous boss of yellow stamens, open from late fall into early winter, often half-tucked under the foliage like a quiet detail. The plant takes well to hedging, shaping, foundation use, container growing, or simply being left alone to round out at four to eight feet. Hardier than the ornamental camellias, the small-leaved \u003cem\u003eCamellia sinensis\u003c\/em\u003e var. \u003cem\u003esinensis\u003c\/em\u003e that Woodlanders grows is reliably hardy through zone 7 and has been pushed into zone 6b with shelter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor Southerners the plant carries an unexpected regional weight: South Carolina is home to the only commercial tea plantation in the continental United States, the Charleston Tea Garden on Wadmalaw Island, less than two hours from Aiken, growing \u003cem\u003eCamellia sinensis\u003c\/em\u003e for tea since the 1960s. Plant a few in the garden and you join a small, very Lowcountry tradition. A mature, well-kept plant will produce tea for a hundred years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor the gardener who wants an ornamental that also does something useful, the collector ready to add the species that started it all, or anyone who has ever wanted to step out the back door, snip a handful of new leaves, and brew a pot.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825321075,"sku":"CAME-SINE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/ScreenShot2024-08-01at9.40.57PM.png?v=1722562931"},{"product_id":"camellia-japonica-x-reticulata-brian","title":"Camellia japonica x reticulata 'Brian'","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e 'Brian' is a handsome evergreen with showy, cyclamen-pink, semi-double flowers carried over a faint silvery cast, opening in late winter on a compact, upright frame. As best the nursery can determine, the plant is a \u003cem\u003eCamellia reticulata\u003c\/em\u003e by \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e hybrid, drawing the larger flower and silvered sheen of the reticulata side together with the hardiness and tidy habit of the japonicas.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike most camellias, 'Brian' is at finest in semi-shade, in sandy, slightly acidic soil kept mulched and watered, where the upright evergreen frame holds the year and the bright pink flowers light the cool months against dark, glossy foliage. A fine choice for a shaded border, a woodland planting, or a sheltered foundation, and an uncommon hybrid for the camellia collector.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825419379,"sku":"CAME-JAPO-RETI-BRIA-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1739.jpg?v=1720136941"},{"product_id":"camellia-saluensis","title":"Camellia saluenensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eCamellia saluenensis is not the flashiest camellia in the garden, but few have done more to shape the ones that are. This upright, densely leafy evergreen carries small, single, funnel-shaped flowers in soft pink, opening from late winter into spring, and stands as one of the two parents behind the celebrated Camellia williamsii hybrids that carried camellia growing into colder gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA word on the name, since accuracy matters: the correct spelling is Camellia saluenensis, for the Salween River, the great river known in China as the Nu Jiang that cuts through western Yunnan, where the plant grows wild on the mountains between the Salween and the Shweli between roughly one and three thousand meters. The trade has long shortened the epithet to saluensis, and that shorter form still lingers in older labels and in our web address, though saluenensis is the name to trust. The Scottish plant hunter George Forrest collected and introduced the species around 1917, sending seed home to J.C. Williams at Caerhays in Cornwall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt Caerhays, Williams crossed Forrest's plants with Camellia japonica and raised the first Camellia williamsii hybrids, among them 'J.C. Williams,' 'St Ewe,' and 'Mary Christian,' while at Borde Hill Colonel Stephenson Clarke used the same species to raise the most famous of them all, the soft pink 'Donation.' The williamsii hybrids inherited from this parent their hardiness, their long free-flowering season, and the tidy habit of dropping spent blooms cleanly rather than clinging to them, browned, the way a japonica will. The genus honors Georg Josef Kamel, the Moravian Jesuit whom Linnaeus commemorated, though he never saw the plant that bears his name.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, treat Camellia saluenensis as the collector's original behind the famous hybrids: an upright, bushy shrub for dappled shade and acidic, humus-rich, well-drained soil, hardy through USDA zones 7 to 9 with a little shelter at the cold edge, where the species is a touch more tender than the offspring. The single pink flowers open early, when the garden is still bare, and draw the first bees; the glossy foliage holds all year. Grow this one for the flowers, and for the pleasure of keeping the wild parent alongside 'Donation' and the rest of the line.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825517683,"sku":"CAME-SALU-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1812.jpg?v=1720136944"},{"product_id":"camellia-saluensis-appleblossom","title":"Camellia saluenensis 'Appleblossom'","description":"\u003cp\u003eCamellia saluensis 'Appleblossom' is a pink-flowered selection of the Salween camellia, chosen for the abundance of soft, single, apple-blossom-pink flowers borne in late winter and spring. What sets this plant apart is not a registration certificate but a story: the stock came originally from the Norfolk, Virginia garden of the late Frederic Heutte, the French-born plantsman who served as the first director of Norfolk Botanical Garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHeutte, born in Paris in 1899, ran Norfolk's parks for nearly thirty years and, in 1938, helped conceive the azalea and camellia garden that grew into one of the great camellia collections of the Southeast, convinced that the Tidewater climate was made for the genus. A camellia passed hand to hand from a plantsman of that stature carries a provenance all its own, and Woodlanders keeps the line going. The species behind the selection, Camellia saluenensis (long spelled saluensis in the trade), is the wild Yunnan parent of the hardy williamsii hybrids, introduced from the Salween River country by George Forrest around 1917.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe genus honors Georg Josef Kamel, the Moravian Jesuit and pharmacist whom Linnaeus chose to commemorate. The selection name, 'Appleblossom,' describes the flower exactly: soft pink, single, and open-faced, with the fresh look of orchard bloom in the thin light of late winter. A word of care for the record, since several unrelated camellias circulate under the name 'Apple Blossom,' this is a Woodlanders provenance selection of the Salween species, not those other plants.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow 'Appleblossom' as the species prefers: dappled shade, acidic and humus-rich soil kept moist but well-drained, and shelter from cold drying wind, dependable through USDA zones 7 to 9. The upright, bushy evergreen makes a fine early-flowering specimen or a member of a mixed camellia and rhododendron border, throwing pink flowers when the garden most needs them and drawing the first bees. Grow this one for the flowers and for the history, a small living thread back to Fred Heutte's Norfolk garden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825550451,"sku":"CAME-SALU-APPL-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Camelliasaluensis_Appleblossom.webp?v=1784329320"},{"product_id":"camellia-sasanqua-yuletide","title":"Camellia sasanqua 'Yuletide'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Yuletide' is one of the most widespread and instantly recognizable red camellias in the trade, and the popularity is well earned. Dense growth carries lustrous dark green foliage on an upright, tidy, naturally columnar frame, and against that backdrop the flowers arrive in real quantity from late fall into early winter: single blooms about three inches across in a clean fire red, each one centered on a boss of bright golden stamens. The contrast is the thing. Very few plants are doing anything at all in December in a southern garden, and a shrub covered in red and gold at that moment tends to end arguments about where to put it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe origin is well documented. 'Yuletide' arose as a chance seedling of \u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e × \u003cem\u003evernalis\u003c\/em\u003e 'Hiryu' at Nuccio's Nurseries in Altadena, California, first flowering in 1959 and released to the trade in the years that followed. That parentage is why you will see the plant listed two ways. Most American nurseries, ours included, sell 'Yuletide' as a \u003cem\u003eCamellia sasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e, which is how the trade has always handled it; the Royal Horticultural Society and a number of camellia authorities file the same clone under \u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e × \u003cem\u003evernalis\u003c\/em\u003e, a hybrid group between \u003cem\u003eC. sasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eC. japonica\u003c\/em\u003e that sits between the two parents in leaf size and blooms in the gap between their seasons. Both labels point at the same plant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCamellias came to the American South by way of Europe in the late eighteenth century and became so thoroughly naturalized in southern garden culture that most people assume they were always here. The genus belongs to Theaceae, the tea family, and the same botanical neighborhood produces \u003cem\u003eCamellia sinensis\u003c\/em\u003e, from which every cup of black, green, and oolong tea is made. In Japan \u003cem\u003esasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e is \u003cem\u003esazanka\u003c\/em\u003e, valued for centuries for autumn bloom and for the oil pressed from the seed, which has long been used on hair and skin and to protect steel blades from rust. The sasanquas differ from the showier japonicas in three useful ways: they take considerably more sun, they flower months earlier, and they shed their petals cleanly instead of hanging on to brown flowers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant in semi-shade in sandy, slightly acid soil, kept mulched and watered; morning sun with afternoon shade is close to ideal in the Deep South, though 'Yuletide' tolerates more sun than a japonica ever would. The columnar habit makes this a natural for a narrow bed, a foundation planting under eaves, a screen, or a pair flanking a door, and the same habit means very little pruning is required. When pruning is needed, do it right after flowering, since next year's buds form on new growth through summer. Set where the December bloom will be seen from indoors. Bees still working on a mild winter afternoon will find these flowers when there is almost nothing else on offer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825583219,"sku":"CAME-SASA-YULE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1803.jpg?v=1720136950"},{"product_id":"camellia-sasanqua-misty-moon","title":"Camellia sasanqua 'Misty Moon'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Misty Moon' is a relatively new selection of the favorite fall-blooming sasanqua, an upright, bushy evergreen carrying large, rounded, single to semi-double flowers in a soft lavender-pink with gently wavy petals. The fading flowers do something unusual, taking on a cool grayish-blue cast before the petals drop, the detail that earns the name. Woodlanders has grown 'Misty Moon' in the ground for many years here in Aiken, and the old-nursery specimen has become a real showstopper just as the rest of the garden winds down for the year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike most camellias, the plant is at finest in semi-shade, in sandy, slightly acidic soil kept mulched and watered, where the upright frame holds the year and the lavender-pink flowers light the cool months against dark, glossy foliage. A fine choice for a shrub border, an informal screen, or a foundation planting where late-season color is wanted.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825648755,"sku":"CAME-SASA-MIST-MOON-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1425.jpg?v=1720136952"},{"product_id":"camellia-reticulata-x-fraterna-crimson-candles","title":"Camellia reticulata x fraterna 'Crimson Candles'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere is a quiet poetry in a camellia's defiance of the cold, a flowering that comes not in spring's abundance but in the leanest stretch of the year. Few cultivars speak that winter sonnet as clearly as \u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e 'Crimson Candles', a hybrid of \u003cem\u003eCamellia reticulata\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eCamellia fraterna\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cross came from the careful hands of Dr. Clifford Parks of Camellia Forest Nursery, a pivotal figure in American camellia breeding with deep ties to research at the University of North Carolina and to the practical art of propagation. Parks set out to expand what camellias could be and where they could thrive, pairing the grandeur of \u003cem\u003eCamellia reticulata\u003c\/em\u003e, long cultivated in the temples and mountains of Yunnan, with the cold hardiness and free-flowering nature of \u003cem\u003eCamellia fraterna\u003c\/em\u003e, a smaller, white-flowered species of humble but enduring qualities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result proved as resilient as it is lovely: a shrub that blooms through Southern winters with upright rose-pink flowers rising like lit tapers in the grey season, aptly named for the candle-shaped buds and luminous color. From the Carolinas to California, 'Crimson Candles' is prized as one of the earliest camellias to flower, opening in December or January and carrying into February in zone 7 and warmer. Unlike the many camellias that droop or hang shyly downward, this cultivar holds the blossoms upright and alert, unbothered by the chill, the tidy dark evergreen foliage setting off the vivid flowers like velvet behind a gemstone. Compact at six to ten feet, dense and well-furnished, the plant suits a woodland border, a foundation, or a part-shaded bed in moist, acidic soil, a living bridge between Chinese mountains and the Southern garden. The Royal Horticultural Society granted the cultivar an Award of Garden Merit in 2012.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825747059,"sku":"CAME-RETI-CRIM-CAND-01G","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/CamelliaCrimsonCandles.png?v=1752250464"},{"product_id":"camellia-japonica","title":"Camellia japonica","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn honest admission to start: we do not know her name. \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e has been bred and named for the better part of three centuries, the roll of registered cultivars runs well into the thousands, and behind those stand thousands more good selections that were grown, loved, handed over a fence, and quietly parted from their labels along the way. This is one of the latter, a pale-pink japonica of real quality and no surviving paperwork, the kind of plant that turns up in old Southern gardens where someone's grandmother knew exactly what it was and never thought to write it down.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat we can tell you is what she shows. Soft, clear pink flowers open in the cool months, late winter into earliest spring, in the unhurried, many-petaled manner of a good japonica, set against the thick, glossy evergreen leaves the species is named for; tsubaki, in Japan, means something close to thick-leaf tree. She carries the upright, well-mannered habit you want from a camellia, and performs the way camellias have performed in the South since they reached the gardens of the Old South in the early 1800s and declined to leave.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a particular pleasure in an unnamed plant. No registry to consult, no cultivar to measure her against, nothing to live up to but the flower itself, which is lovely and entirely sufficient. \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e was named by Linnaeus for the Jesuit Georg Joseph Kamel and reached English gardens before 1739; by the 1830s dozens of cultivars had found ready acceptance in the Old South, and the thousands grown today all trace back to that first wave. For the gardener who would rather keep one good camellia with a lost name than three famous ones with their papers in order, here she is: pink, anonymous, and asking only for part shade and a little patience.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825779827,"sku":"CAME-JAPO-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1669.jpg?v=1720136960"},{"product_id":"camellia-japonica-single-red","title":"Camellia japonica (single red)","description":"\u003cp\u003eA camellia with a story we can only half tell. Years ago a plant was dropped at the nursery in Aiken, left for a friend to carry home to Korea. The pickup never came, and the plant stayed; the label, somewhere in the years that followed, was lost. We propagated her anyway, because she was too good to let slip, and because she has the particular bone structure of a real cultivar. Someone, somewhere, named her.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat she is, plainly: a single-form \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e with short, heavily textured petals in deep oxblood red, arranged in a clean flat ring around a generous bright yellow stamen boss. The single red japonica is one of the oldest forms in cultivation, the camellia that appears in Chinese paintings and porcelain from the eleventh century onward, the camellia before camellias became the elaborate, ruffled, formal-double affairs of the Victorian show bench. Hold one of her flowers in your hand and you understand why the early painters bothered: the matte red against the gold center is graphic and arresting in a way the more ornate cultivars never quite manage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe carries glossy, dark green foliage and the upright, well-mannered habit of a good \u003cem\u003ejaponica\u003c\/em\u003e. We have grown her long enough to know she performs reliably in part shade, blooms heavily, and reads beautifully against winter foliage and bare wood. As an unnamed selection she is a chance to own something in no catalog and no breeder's registry, a camellia with provenance that ends, charmingly, at a doorstep. For the gardener who would rather have one good plant with a story than three named ones without.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825878131,"sku":"CAME-JAPO-SING-RED-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1424.jpg?v=1720136969"},{"product_id":"camellia-hybrid-julia-mackintosh","title":"Camellia hybrid 'Julia Mackintosh'","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Julia Mackintosh' is a Woodlanders introduction with a family story behind the name. A chance \u003cem\u003eCamellia sasanqua\u003c\/em\u003e seedling that came up here at the nursery, the plant was selected and propagated by George Mitchell and named for the late Julia Mackintosh, who with her husband Robert founded Woodlanders. The parentage is unrecorded, though the flowers point to 'Leslie Ann', one of the nursery's long-time favorites, as the likely mother.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe bloom is the charm. Tight buds show a deep reddish-pink while closed, then open to a white, softly ruffled, semi-double interior that keeps a reddish cup at the base, the color bleeding out to pink before it meets the white. The effect is fresh and a little old-fashioned at once, carried on glossy evergreen foliage and the easy autumn-into-winter habit that makes the sasanquas such dependable garden shrubs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike the rest of the clan, 'Julia Mackintosh' takes sun more readily than the japonicas and asks only for a sheltered spot in well-drained, acidic soil. Grow this camellia as an informal flowering hedge, a screen, or a specimen near a path or doorway where the bicolored flowers can be read up close, and where a piece of Woodlanders history can quietly earn a place in the garden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057825943667,"sku":"CAME-HYBR-JULI-MACK-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/CamelliahybridJuliaMackintoshfrontviewWoodlanders.jpg?v=1728933016"},{"product_id":"franklinia-alatamaha","title":"Franklinia altamaha","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew plants carry a story like the Franklin tree. Collected from the banks of the Altamaha River in Georgia by John and William Bartram in the 1760s and named by them for their friend Benjamin Franklin, Franklinia alatamaha was last seen growing wild around 1803 and has never been found in nature since. Every Franklinia alive today, in every garden and arboretum on earth, descends from the seed the Bartrams carried home to Philadelphia. To grow one is to hold a living piece of that lineage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe tree earns a place on its own merits, history aside. In late summer and into fall, white, camellia-like flowers with a central boss of golden stamens open in succession, sweetly fragrant and three inches across, often while the foliage is already turning a deep, burnished crimson. Flower and fire together is a generosity few plants manage, and the show arrives in a season when most trees have long finished.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFranklinia belongs to the tea family, Theaceae, kin to the camellias and stewartias, and shares their taste for cool, acid, perfectly drained ground. The tree can be temperamental, resenting wet feet, heavy clay, and soil where cotton or other crops have left root-rot pathogens behind, so give a raised, humus-rich, freely draining bed, a little afternoon shade in the hottest climates, and the patience to let a slow plant settle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe have grown Franklinia at Woodlanders for decades, and the growing never stops feeling like a privilege. Site the tree as a specimen where the late flowers and crimson fall color can be admired at close range, near a path, a patio, or a window framed for autumn, and pair with other acid-lovers such as camellias, azaleas, and stewartias. A rare and storied small tree for the collector willing to give it the drainage it demands.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057872506995,"sku":"FRAN-ALAT-01G","price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/FrankliniaalatamahaWoodlanders1MTAuburn.jpg?v=1750870105"},{"product_id":"gordonia-lasianthus","title":"Gordonia lasianthus","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/blogs\/the-node\/loblolly-bay-gordonia-lasianthus-the-swamp-s-camellia-and-a-masterclass-in-place-based-design\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eRead the full plant profile, with design and field notes, on our blog.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere are trees that feel as though they were written into the land's original scripture, and Gordonia lasianthus, the loblolly bay, is one of them: a native evergreen of the Southern coastal plain whose white flowers gleam like prayers unfolding in the heat of high summer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis noble member of the tea family, Theaceae, shares kinship with the celebrated camellias and with Franklinia alatamaha, that long-lost ghost tree of Georgia's riverbanks. But unlike the mythic cousin, the loblolly bay has remained a quiet and constant presence, thriving in the moist, acidic soils of pinewoods, boggy hollows, and sandy seepage slopes from Virginia to eastern Texas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReaching a stately height in the wild, often thirty to sixty feet, the tree grows straight and tall with smooth gray bark and a narrow crown. The evergreen leaves are glossy and lance-shaped, catching light like bayonets, while the flowers, large, pure white, and golden-throated, open in succession from early summer into August. Each bloom lasts but a day, yet the steady procession brings a quiet brilliance to the woodland edge when most other native trees have long finished flowering. Early American botanists exploring the southeastern wilderness admired the tree, and William Bartram praised the grace of the loblolly bay in the wet pine savannas of Florida.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGordonia can be particular in cultivation, but rewards the careful gardener. The tree prefers moist yet well-drained sandy soils, especially along seeps and natural woodland slopes, and will not abide standing water or heavy, compacted ground, where the plant languishes or perishes. Given the right site, though, the loblolly bay grows straight and tall, flowers faithfully, and offers a taste of the native grandeur of the Southern wilderness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhotos courtesy of Will Cook and Scott Zona.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057875783795,"sku":"GORD-LASI-01G","price":27.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Gordonia-lasianthus-Scott-Zona--CC-BY-NC.jpg?v=1753130193"},{"product_id":"gordonia-lasianthus-variegata","title":"Gordonia lasianthus 'Variegata'","description":"\u003cp\u003eSome plants elevate the familiar into the extraordinary, and Gordonia lasianthus 'Variegata' does exactly that, taking the quiet majesty of the native loblolly bay and dressing it in a silken fringe of cream. The glossy green leaves are edged in irregular strokes of ivory, as though touched by the brush of some moonlit painter in the pine woods, and the whole shrub glimmers softly through every season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis uncommon cultivar was introduced by Bob Byrnes of Trail Ridge Nursery in Florida, a nurseryman known for a discerning eye and a commitment to preserving Southern rarities. 'Variegata' stands as one of the very few variegated forms of this Southeastern native, bringing a fresh, luminous texture to the woodland garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike the species, this tree belongs to the tea family, Theaceae, and shares a lineage with the stately camellias and the storied Franklinia alatamaha. The summer flowers are large, white, and pristine, three to four inches across, with five silky petals cupping a golden crown of stamens, opening one by one through the long summer days as a cooling counterpoint to the heat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Variegata' is best grown with care and intention, for Gordonia is no plant for an ill-suited site. The tree wants acidic, sandy soil with excellent drainage and steady moisture, the conditions of a seepage slope or a sandy pinewood flat, and falters in heavy or compacted ground. Where the plant is happy, though, growth comes slowly but with dignity, offering evergreen structure, summer bloom, and foliage that brightens even a shady border, a tree for the collector, the connoisseur, and the gardener who wishes to celebrate the subtle beauty of the American South.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057875947635,"sku":"GORD-LASI-VARI-01G","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Gordonialasianthus_Variegata_Woodlanders2.jpg?v=1753130498"},{"product_id":"polyspora-axillaris","title":"Polyspora axillaris","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePolyspora axillaris\u003c\/em\u003e, the fried egg tree, is a glossy, small evergreen tree or large shrub of the tea family, Theaceae, native to southern China, Taiwan, and Vietnam and still rarely cultivated in the United States. A close relative of the native loblolly bay (\u003cem\u003eGordonia lasianthus\u003c\/em\u003e), the plant bears abundant, showy white flowers three inches across.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the whole show: large, crisp white, camellia-like blooms with a bold central boss of bright yellow stamens, so like a fried egg that the common name writes itself. Bloom comes in late fall and winter, an elegant splash of white when little else in the garden is flowering, and the mildly fragrant, nectar-rich blooms draw the season's bees.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glossy, dark green, leathery leaves make a dense, handsome canopy the rest of the year, and the plant suits mild regions best, zone 9 and the warmer parts of zone 8. Give full sun to part shade and acid, well-drained soil, with afternoon shade in the fiercest heat, and shelter the large flowers from strong wind.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWoodlanders originally propagated cuttings of this uncommon species from a specimen then in cultivation at the famous Tom Dodd Nurseries in Semmes, Alabama. A collector's evergreen for the adventurous southern gardener who wants camellia-like flowers at an unexpected season.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePhoto courtesy of Jim Robbins.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057945251955,"sku":"POLY-AXIL-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Polysporaaxillaris-JimRobbins.jpg?v=1725917053"},{"product_id":"schima-argentia","title":"Schima argentia","description":"\u003cp\u003eA number of trees in the genus Schima are native to the Far East and their taxonomy is confused. A number of different ones have been introduced in recent years but they are still little-known in the U.S. These evergreen trees are in the Tea family and have white flowers suggestive of the related Stewartia, Gordonia, Polyspora, etc. Schima argentea has relatively thin simple leaves which are rather long pointed. The leaf undersides are quite glaucous with a gray to white color. These we offer are propagated from a specimen we have in the Aiken Citywide Arboretum which has proven hardy here through recent winters. Dr. Ranney at NC State University Horticultural Experiment Station has produced hybrids between this plant and Franklinia which are called \"Schimlinia\" Plant in good soil that is moist but well-drained in a semi shady site.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057994403955,"sku":"SCHI-ARGE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2148.jpg?v=1720141159"},{"product_id":"schima-superba","title":"Schima superba","description":"\u003cp\u003eSchima superba is a beautiful evergreen Asian tree with no English common name. It is in the Tea family so related to Camellia, Gordonia, Stewartia, etc. It has lanceolate leaves 5-6 inches long. The new growth is red-bronze. Flowers are white and several inches in diameter. Our trees were grown from seed collected in Taiwan by our freind Mark Krautmann of Heritage Seedlings. We have seen several thriving specimens of this tree in the southeastern U.S. and expect it to become much more well-known and widely grown here.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057994502259,"sku":"SCHI-SUPE-01G","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/54DE5A3E-CF77-4D50-B790-1DB51971597F.jpg?v=1783696381"},{"product_id":"schirrilinea-schima-x-franklinia","title":"Schima x Franklinia (×Schimlinia floribunda)","description":"\u003cp\u003e×Schimlinia floribunda is one of the rarest woody plants a gardener can grow: a deliberate intergeneric hybrid between two members of the tea family, Theaceae, uniting the fabled Franklinia alatamaha with the Asian evergreen Schima argentea. The cross marries the ornamental drama and hardiness of Franklinia with the vigor, adaptability, and evergreen constitution of Schima, and the result carries large, camellia-like white flowers, glossy foliage, and an upright, well-furnished frame. The hybrid formula name honors both parents at once, Schima and Franklinia folded into a single word.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe hybrid was raised by Dr. Thomas Ranney and colleagues at North Carolina State University's Mountain Horticultural Crops Research Station, from deliberate cross-pollinations made in 1999 and 2000 and repeated in 2002. The hybrid was formally described as ×Schimlinia floribunda in 2003, and the 2002 seedlings first flowered in 2004. The aim was frankly practical: to combine the desirable traits of a nearly impossible garden plant, Franklinia, with the easier temperament of a related genus, and so to carry rare Theaceae genetics into gardens that Franklinia alone would defeat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHalf of that heritage is pure legend. Franklinia alatamaha, named by the botanist explorers John and William Bartram for their friend Benjamin Franklin, was found growing along Georgia's Altamaha River in 1765 and never reliably seen in the wild after the early nineteenth century. Every Franklin tree alive today descends from seed the Bartrams carried home to Philadelphia, which makes the parent one of horticulture's great rescues from extinction. Schima, the other parent, brings the broad evergreen leaves and lasting constitution of the warm-temperate Asian forests, a lineage as tough as Franklinia is delicate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, grow ×Schimlinia floribunda as a specimen or a large flowering shrub where the late show can be appreciated up close, for the fragrant white blooms open from late summer into fall when little else in the border is flowering. The glossy, deep-veined leaves hold much of the year, thinning somewhat at the cold edge of the range, so treat the plant as evergreen in the warm South and semi-evergreen where winters bite. High heat and humidity tolerance make ×Schimlinia a natural for southeastern gardens; give a sheltered, part-shaded to sunny site, rich well-drained soil, and the company of camellias, tea olives, and other broadleaf evergreens that share the taste. To grow this hybrid is to keep a living piece of botanical history, and one of the newest chapters in it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePhoto courtesy of Trees and Shrubs Online and Ruth Happel.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057994633331,"sku":"SCHI-X-FRAN-SCHI-01G","price":62.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/89526F63-5180-4B51-B845-A9DC8F8DEC1E.jpg?v=1722558852"},{"product_id":"stewartia-pseudocamellia","title":"Stewartia pseudocamellia","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis lovely flowering tree in the tea family is native to Japan. It is uncommon but is probably the Stewartia most often seen in cultivation. It is a small to medium size deciduous tree that bears large white flowers with yellow stamens and has attractive exfoliating bark and good yellow to red fall color. Plant in fertile, well-drained soil in sun or semi-shade with irrigation during dry periods. Dirr, Manual of Woody Landscape Plants describes it as \" magnificent\" and \"a worthy tree for the garden\". It is hardy and probably best suited in zones cooler than zone 8.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057999220851,"sku":"STEW-PSEU-01G","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-238.jpg?v=1720141320"},{"product_id":"stewartia-koreana","title":"Stewartia koreana","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis Stewartia is a large growing tree form with dark green leaves which turn a brilliant red in the fall. The gold-centered 3 inch white flowers typically bloom from June to July. Its marbled exfoliating bark ranges in colors from grayish-brown to orange-brown. Sometimes listed as Stewartia pseudocamellia var. koreana. The Japanese Stewartia pseudocamellia is similar but does not get as large. Stewartia should have a well-drained fertile soil with ample moisture.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057999253619,"sku":"STEW-KORE-01G","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-239.jpg?v=1720141322"},{"product_id":"stewartia-monodelpha","title":"Stewartia monadelpha","description":"\u003cp\u003eTall stewartia is an upright deciduous tree of medium size, and for most of the year the reason to grow one is the trunk. The bark sheds in thin flakes to leave a smooth surface of cinnamon and orange-brown, warm enough to pull the eye across a winter garden from some distance, and the effect only improves as the tree ages. Abundant small white flowers follow in summer and the leaves turn red and purple in fall, but the bark is the long argument. Reckon on twenty to twenty-five feet in a garden, though in the forests of Japan the species has been recorded at eighty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo name stories meet in this tree. The genus honors John Stuart, third Earl of Bute, an eighteenth-century patron of botany whose name Linnaeus wrote down as Stewart, an error the rules of nomenclature have since made permanent. The epithet \u003cem\u003emonadelpha\u003c\/em\u003e means one brotherhood, and describes the stamens, which are fused at the base into a single tube rather than standing free. In Japan, where the tree is native to Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, the name is himeshara, princess shara, a diminutive of the shara given to the larger-leaved \u003cem\u003eStewartia pseudocamellia\u003c\/em\u003e. That shara comes in turn from the sal tree of Buddhist tradition, under which the Buddha is said to have died; Japanese gardeners long ago transferred the association to a hardy local stand-in, and the stewartias have carried the borrowed name ever since.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers open through early and midsummer, white, cupped and camellia-like, an inch or so across with a boss of orange anthers at the center, and they are borne in real quantity rather than as an occasional event. \u003cem\u003eStewartia\u003c\/em\u003e belongs to Theaceae, the tea family, alongside \u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e and the vanished \u003cem\u003eFranklinia alatamaha\u003c\/em\u003e, and the flower is where that kinship is most obvious. Among gardeners this species has a reputation as the most forgiving stewartia, more tolerant of ordinary garden conditions than a genus famous for sulking usually manages, which makes tall stewartia the sensible place to start for anyone who has killed one before.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite the tree where the winter trunk will be lit and looked at, near a path, a drive, or a window, in moist, acid, well-drained soil with plenty of leaf mold, in morning sun with afternoon shade in the South. Stewartias resent root disturbance, so plant once and mulch well rather than shifting the tree around later. Underplant with ferns, epimedium and spring ephemerals that will not fight at the root, and leave the lower limbs high enough that the bark stays visible. Hardy through USDA zones 6 to 8. There is no ethnobotanical tradition here beyond the borrowed Buddhist name and a little use of the timber in Japan, which is fair enough for a tree grown honestly for beauty.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057999319155,"sku":"STEW-MONO-01G","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/StewartiamonadelphaUWashingtonBotanicGarden.jpg?v=1787185835"},{"product_id":"stewartia-pteropetiolata","title":"Stewartia pteropetiolata","description":"\u003cp\u003eA rare large shrub or small tree with dark glossy evergreen or semi-evergreen leaves and 1 inch white flowers. (See HIL)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057999351923,"sku":"STEW-PTER-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"stewartia-malacodendron","title":"Stewartia malacodendron","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eStewartia malacodendron\u003c\/em\u003e is a much sought native deciduous shrub, and one of only two stewartias native to the United States. The species sits in Theaceae, the tea family, so the kinship with \u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e is real and visible the moment the flowers open: white, three inches across, built like a single rose, with a boss of purple-filamented stamens around blue anthers at the center. Nothing else in an American woodland looks remotely like it. The plant is found mostly on streamside slopes in rich woods and is widely scattered in spots from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas, never in stands, usually as three to ten plants in a place. Bloom comes in early summer, a flower or two at a time over several weeks, and the autumn foliage turns orange to red.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf it were easy to grow, this would be a standard landscape plant rather than a special sought-after connoisseur plant. Three things stand in the way. Growth is slow. Propagation is difficult. And the roots deeply resent disturbance, which makes transplanting an established plant close to hopeless and means a young container-grown one should go into its permanent position and stay there. Add to that a genuine intolerance of hot afternoon sun and you have a species that has stayed rare in gardens for the entire time it has been in cultivation, which is since 1752.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBecause seed is the only practical route and good seed is hard to come by, every batch we have grown has come from friends. Jack Johnston, Mike Creel, and Dylan Tilton have all shared collections with us over the years, and the plants offered here exist because of that generosity. It is worth saying plainly: a plant this difficult stays in circulation only when people who grow it pass seed along.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe names carry their own small histories. \u003cem\u003eStewartia\u003c\/em\u003e honors John Stuart, the third Earl of Bute and a serious patron of botany, though Linnaeus spelled the name with a w and the rules of nomenclature have kept his spelling ever since. \u003cem\u003eMalacodendron\u003c\/em\u003e is Greek for soft tree, from \u003cem\u003emalakos\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003edendron\u003c\/em\u003e, and refers to the silky hairs on the undersides of the leaves; the same character gives the common name silky camellia. Populations have declined enough that the species is listed as endangered in Arkansas and Florida, which makes nursery-propagated plants worth something beyond their garden value.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHappy in the garden once established in neutral to slightly acid sandy soil with good drainage, adequate moisture, and shade from hot afternoon sun. Site with real care, because you will not get to move the plant later: high filtered shade or a spot with morning sun and afternoon shelter, ideally on a slope where drainage is certain and the soil never bakes. Mulch generously and permanently, water through dry spells for years rather than months, and resist digging anywhere near the root zone. Good in a woodland garden with \u003cem\u003eHydrangea quercifolia\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eIllicium\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eRhododendron\u003c\/em\u003e, and ferns. This is a plant to buy small, plant once, and wait for.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057999417459,"sku":"STEW-MALA-01G","price":42.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"stewartia-sinensis","title":"Stewartia sinensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis small tree of Chinese origin has showy white flowers and fall foliage that is red or reddish, and the smooth whitish trunks with exfoliating bark are an important ornamental feature. In truth the bark is the reason most people plant one. Old stems shed in thin plates to leave a polished, mottled surface in cream, buff, and cinnamon that looks best in winter when nothing distracts from it, and improves every year for decades. The flowers arrive in early summer, white and cupped, about two inches across with a central boss of yellow stamens, unmistakably the work of a relative of \u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e. Then autumn brings a clean red. Very few small trees do three distinct things this well.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe tea family connection is not incidental. \u003cem\u003eStewartia\u003c\/em\u003e sits in Theaceae alongside \u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eFranklinia\u003c\/em\u003e, and the family resemblance runs right through the flower. The genus name honors John Stuart, third Earl of Bute, a patron of botany whose name Linnaeus rendered with a w, and nomenclatural rules have preserved that spelling ever since. \u003cem\u003eSinensis\u003c\/em\u003e places this species in China, where it grows in mountain forests, and it is one of a group of Asian stewartias that have proven considerably easier in cultivation than the two American species.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOur propagation stock comes from cuttings taken at Hopelands Gardens, a few minutes from the nursery here in Aiken. Local provenance of that kind is worth more than it sounds: these are cuttings off a tree that has already proven it will grow in this soil and this heat, rather than material shipped in from a cooler climate and hoped for.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDirr, in his \u003cem\u003eManual of Woody Landscape Plants\u003c\/em\u003e, says: \"....a delightful small landscape plant that should be more widely used.\" and: \"Hardy to Boston and should be pursued by discriminating gardeners.\" That second remark is worth attending to, because the cold hardiness surprises people. This is a tree that will grow well north of where the American silky camellia gives up, and it asks less of a gardener in every respect.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA plant for moist but well-drained acidic soil in sun or half shade, reaching fifteen to twenty-five feet. Like the whole genus, this species dislikes root disturbance, so plant young into a permanent position and mulch rather than cultivate around the base. Steady moisture matters, particularly while establishing; a droughty site produces a stunted tree that never develops the bark. Site where the winter trunk will actually be seen, near a path, a drive, or a window, since bark this good is wasted at the back of a border. Underplant with hellebores, epimedium, ferns, or low evergreens that will not compete hard at the surface, and resist the urge to limb up too early. Growth is unhurried and the tree rewards patience.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057999450227,"sku":"STEW-SINE-01G","price":42.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/StewartiasinensisJimRobbins.jpg?v=1787169671"},{"product_id":"stewartia-ovata","title":"Stewartia ovata","description":"\u003cp\u003e*\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057999482995,"sku":"STEW-OVAT-01G","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"stewartia-rostrata","title":"Stewartia rostrata","description":"\u003cp\u003eBeaked stewartia is one of the rarest plants in a genus that has no common members, and we are indebted to Roger Gossler of Oregon for our stock. He calls the species one of the rarest Stewartias, grown above all for the large maroon calyx that closes around the seed pods once the flowers have fallen. \"Very beautiful,\" he says, and Gossler has grown more stewartias than most gardeners will ever see. In the garden the plant makes a deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub or small tree, pyramidal while young and rounding into an oval with age, reaching anywhere from thirteen to thirty-odd feet depending on how patient the gardener turns out to be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe genus commemorates John Stuart, third Earl of Bute, an eighteenth-century patron of botany whose surname Linnaeus set down as Stewart when he coined the name. The misspelling is now permanent, fixed in place by the rules of botanical nomenclature, which is a small comedy the plant carries without complaint. The epithet \u003cem\u003erostrata\u003c\/em\u003e means beaked, for the drawn-out point on the seed capsule. \u003cem\u003eStewartia\u003c\/em\u003e sits in Theaceae, the tea family, in the company of \u003cem\u003eCamellia\u003c\/em\u003e and the lost \u003cem\u003eFranklinia\u003c\/em\u003e, and the family resemblance shows plainly the moment the flowers open.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis species spent decades in cultivation with no name of its own. Two different plants were growing at the Arnold Arboretum under the single label \u003cem\u003eStewartia sinensis\u003c\/em\u003e, and in the early 1970s Stephen Spongberg worked out that one of them was a distinct species from southeastern China, describing the plant as \u003cem\u003eStewartia rostrata\u003c\/em\u003e. The flowers open white and cupped in May and June, five petals around a boss of stamens, and the calyx behind them flushes deep beet red and holds that color long after the petals drop, staining the developing capsules through summer. Autumn brings red and orange to the leaves. There is no ethnobotany to speak of here, no old medicine or dye or timber tradition; this is a plant grown for looking at, and honest enough to admit as much.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSite the beaked stewartia as a specimen where the calyx and the smooth young trunk can be read at close range, in dappled shade or morning sun with shelter from hard afternoon light, in moist, acid, well-drained ground enriched with leaf mold. Stewartias resent root disturbance and hate hot dry soil, so plant once, mulch generously, and water through the first summers rather than moving the plant about looking for a better spot. Hardy through USDA zones 5 to 8, a good deal colder than the Southern reputation of the genus suggests. Growing a nursery-propagated plant of a species this scarce is a quiet way of keeping the species in cultivation, which for the rarer stewartias is not a small thing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eImage courtesy of Philip de Spoelberch\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057999548531,"sku":"STEW-ROST-01G","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/StewartiarostrataPhilippedeSpoelberch.jpg?v=1787185651"},{"product_id":"stewartia-yunnanensis","title":"Stewartia yunnanensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eThick, dark green foliage and good growth make this Stewartia collected in Yunnan, China, a very promising new plant for southern gardens. We have not been able to locate information on its flowers, ultimate size or hardiness.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057999614067,"sku":"STEW-YUNN-01G","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"tutcheria-virgata","title":"Tutcheria virgata","description":"\u003cp\u003e(See HRT)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42058006495347,"sku":"TUTC-VIRG-01G","price":18.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"camellia-japonica-anacostia-red","title":"Camellia japonica 'Anacostia'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe United States National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. sits on 446 acres of rolling ground above the Anacostia River, a place where serious horticultural work has gone on quietly for the better part of a century. \u003cem\u003eCamellia japonica\u003c\/em\u003e 'Anacostia' takes both the name and the pedigree from that institution, selected at the Arboretum for cold hardiness and reliable performance at the northern edge of camellia country.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCamellias reached the Western world in the eighteenth century, carried from China and Japan by plant hunters who knew at once they were looking at something extraordinary. In Asia the plants had been cultivated for well over a thousand years, as ornamentals, as the source of tea and camellia oil, and as subjects of poetry and painting, and by the time they reached Europe and the American South they had already been refined into thousands of named forms. 'Anacostia' marks a distinctly American chapter of that long story, a selection made not for the mild winters of Kyushu or the Azores but for the colder, more demanding conditions of the mid-Atlantic and upper South.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are deep red, semi-double to formal in arrangement, dense and layered enough to look almost architectural in the winter garden. They open from late winter into early spring, at the precise moment the garden most needs them, set against dark, glossy evergreen leaves that earn their place through the rest of the year without asking for attention. This is a camellia bred over centuries to do exactly one thing well, and the plant shows it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePhotos courtesy of the JC Raulston Arboretum and Scott A.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42129519018099,"sku":"CAME-JAPO-ANAC-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/CamelliaJaponica_Anacostia.jpg?v=1722561801"},{"product_id":"camellia-gigantocarpa","title":"Camellia gigantocarpa","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCamellia gigantocarpa\u003c\/em\u003e is a rare and remarkable species from the subtropical forests of southern China, first documented in the wild in the 1980s in Guangxi Province. The name says the essential thing: gigantocarpa, giant fruit. Where most camellias are grown for flowers, this species is prized above all for the great woody seed capsules that follow them, among the largest in the entire genus.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are no afterthought, large and single, white to the palest pink around a boss of golden stamens, opening in the cool months to give an early show. They give way to the famous fruit: rounded, rough-skinned capsules that can reach four to five inches across, thick-walled and heavy, an oddity that has made the species a favorite of collectors and botanic gardens. The seeds carry a high oil content, and in parts of China the plant is grown as an oil camellia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFound naturally in subtropical evergreen forest, \u003cem\u003eCamellia gigantocarpa\u003c\/em\u003e grows into a handsome small tree or large shrub with the glossy, leathery evergreen foliage of the genus. Limited habitat and the pressure of deforestation have made the species rare in the wild, and cultivation in gardens and arboreta now plays a real part in keeping the plant going. A choice and unusual evergreen for the warm, sheltered garden, and a conversation piece whenever the fruit appears.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePhotos courtesy of Daniel Barthelemy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42154802806899,"sku":"CAME-GIGA-01G","price":42.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/Camelliagigantocarpa2.jpg?v=1723221406"},{"product_id":"camellia-granthemiana","title":"Camellia granthamiana","description":"\u003cp\u003eHigh in the shaded ravines of Hong Kong's Tai Mo Shan, a single camellia tree stood unrecognized until 1955, when the Agricultural, Fisheries and Conservation Department documented an unexpected beauty among the undergrowth. The botanist J. R. Sealy soon described a new species and named the tree \u003cem\u003eCamellia granthamiana\u003c\/em\u003e, honoring the then-Governor Sir Alexander Grantham.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor years that lone specimen stood as the only known plant of the kind. A few more populations have since turned up on Hong Kong's Ma On Shan and across parts of Guangdong, yet the species remains genuinely rare, a whisper of hope in a landscape worn thin by time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrantham's camellia is as distinctive as the story. The tree carries enormous single white blooms, up to four or five inches across, each built around a broad cluster of golden stamens that gives the famous fried-egg effect. Leathery, dark green leaves with deeply impressed veins set off the flowers, which open in late autumn and early winter to bridge the seasons with a serene, almost ceremonial presence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRarity has made the species a conservation priority. Grantham's camellia is protected under Hong Kong's Forestry Regulations and listed in national and international conservation registers, and in 2024 the Hong Kong Biodiversity Genomics Consortium published a chromosome-scale genome of the plant, a foundation for genetic conservation and a deeper understanding of where this camellia sits within the genus. More than an ornamental, Grantham's camellia is a living monument carried from a remote ravine to the garden, with striking blooms and a fragile botanical history worth stewarding.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePhotos courtesy of James Garnett.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43517276782707,"sku":"CAME-GRAN-01G","price":46.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/camellia-granthamiana-jamesgarnettWoodlanders3.jpg?v=1755273279"},{"product_id":"schimlinia-schima-lina-ding-dong","title":"×Schimlinia 'Schima Lina Ding Dong'","description":"\u003cp\u003eA modern Franklin tree with year-round presence and late-summer perfume. ×Schimlinia 'Schima Lina Ding Dong' is a rare intergeneric hybrid bred to capture the romance of the lost Franklin tree while adding real garden durability. Raised by the Mountain Crop Improvement Lab at NC State, the selection crosses Franklinia alatamaha, the legendary Georgia native long gone from the wild and famous for luminous white flowers, with Schima remotiserrata, a broadleaf evergreen of the tea family from Asia. The result is an elegant evergreen carrying fragrant, white, camellia-like blooms in late summer, just when the garden most wants a fresh highlight.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the event. Clusters of pure white blooms with a boss of golden stamens open from late summer into early fall, drawing pollinators and passing noses alike, and early trials report heavier bud set and more abundant bloom than either parent. Glossy, deep green foliage keeps the plant dressed the year round in mild climates, holding evergreen to semi-evergreen depending on winter severity, so the shrub earns a place in leaf as much as in flower.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe cross was made on purpose: Franklinia's beauty married to Schima's adaptability, an intentional pairing meant to improve vigor and cultural flexibility while keeping the classic white-flowered look. For the collector, the pedigree is part of the pleasure. ×Schimlinia is the nothogenus for Franklinia and Schima hybrids, first achieved at NC State as ×Schimlinia floribunda using Schima argentea; 'Schima Lina Ding Dong' is a newer cross using Schima remotiserrata, which keeps the refined form but adds broadleaf evergreen character and late-summer scent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet the plant as a specimen near a path, a patio, or an entry where the late-summer fragrance can be met at close range, and let the neat, upright, evergreen frame anchor a mixed border, a white garden, or a collector's planting. Give full sun to light afternoon shade, moist, acidic, well-drained soil, and enjoy a four-season plant with a genuine botanical story.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43638463201395,"sku":"SCHI-SHIM-LINA-DING-01G","price":85.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/xSchimlininaShimaLindaWoodlanders1.jpg?v=1755632903"},{"product_id":"camellia-japonica-greensboro-red","title":"Camellia japonica 'Greensboro Red'","description":"\u003cp\u003eTo see what a camellia can become when it is left happy for decades, look no farther than 'Greensboro Red'. At the original Woodlanders nursery site, this cultivar has grown into a remarkable hedgerow some fifteen feet tall over more than thirty years, a living reminder that camellias are not merely shrubs but legacy plants. Robert Mackintosh planted that first hedgerow in the early 1970s, from stock acquired at a small local nursery here in Aiken, South Carolina.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom late winter into early spring, 'Greensboro Red' lights the garden with large red to rose-red blooms, usually semi-double and sometimes edging toward full double, each centered on a bold boss of golden stamens. The glossy, deep green evergreen foliage holds the structure handsome the year round, whether the plant is grown as a specimen, a screen, or a flowering hedge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe appeal is easy to name. Signature winter color arrives when most of the garden is still asleep; the dense, upright growth matures into a substantial evergreen wall made for hedges and screens; and the blooms cut beautifully for indoor bowls and vases, a winter answer to the peony. Give the plant a sheltered, bright-shade exposure and steady moisture, and a row of 'Greensboro Red' will become architecture in time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44325454577779,"sku":"CAME-JAPO-GREE-RED-01G","price":38.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/AAE7081E-BB54-4D0D-8951-EE1CB0F43AC9.jpg?v=1771611989"},{"product_id":"camellia-salicifolia","title":"Camellia salicifolia","description":"\u003cp\u003eMost camellias are bought for the flower. This one is bought for the leaf, and anyone who has met the plant in person understands why within about four seconds. \u003cem\u003eCamellia salicifolia\u003c\/em\u003e carries long, thin, lance-shaped leaves that hang rather than sit, closer to a willow or a bamboo than to the stiff glossy ovals of a japonica, so the whole shrub moves in a breeze and reads soft where the rest of the genus reads architectural. New growth comes out coppery and silky, covered in fine hairs, and the young branchlets are villous enough to feel like felt between the fingers. Some growers call the species the willow-leaf camellia and some the Hong Kong camellia; both names point at something true.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe wild plant grows under the canopy of evergreen broadleaf forest in Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, at moderate elevations between roughly a thousand and twenty-six hundred feet. That is a shade plant's pedigree, and the shrub behaves accordingly in the garden: happiest in high filtered light beneath tall pines or oaks, tolerant of quite deep shade, and unhappy in the full southern sun that a sasanqua will shrug off. Flowers come in autumn and early winter, white, five or six obovate petals, only an inch or so across, and lightly fragrant. Beside a big formal japonica bloom they are almost nothing. Beside the foliage they are exactly the right amount.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSpecies camellias like this one matter more than their modest flowers suggest, because breeders keep going back to them. Narrow foliage, fine hairs, scent, and small-flowered grace are traits that the great formal hybrids largely traded away, and \u003cem\u003eC. salicifolia\u003c\/em\u003e has been used in crosses aiming to bring fragrance and a lighter habit back into the group. The genus honors Georg Josef Kamel, the Moravian Jesuit and pharmacist who worked in the Philippines and sent careful plant descriptions back to Europe, and whom Linnaeus commemorated in a genus Kamel himself never worked on. \u003cem\u003eSalicifolia\u003c\/em\u003e is plain description: willow-leaved, from \u003cem\u003eSalix\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite the shrub in a woodland bed where the hanging foliage can be seen against something darker and stiller, and where a hand can reach the new growth in spring, because the felted young shoots are half the pleasure of growing the plant. Eight to fifteen feet in time, open and graceful rather than dense; resist shearing, which destroys the very habit worth having. Acid, humus-rich, well-drained soil, even moisture, and shelter from cold dry wind. One honest caution: this is a subtropical species, hardy in roughly zones 8 to 10 and less cold-tolerant than the japonicas most Southern gardeners know, so give a protected corner in 8a and be prepared to lose the tips in a hard winter. Very few American nurseries have ever offered the plant, which is reason enough to try.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45409808613491,"sku":"CAME-SALI-01G","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/7D1C88FD-ED5B-40E0-A612-F2D69D93B76E.jpg?v=1787797107"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/theaceae.oembed?page=3","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}