Camellia saluenensis 'Appleblossom'

Camellia 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.

Heutte, 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.

The 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.

Grow '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.