The first year I started doing the garden (2011) - I gave everyone fair warning of what to buy me. To some of you that may sound incredibly self centred but I am what I am! I hate surprises and much prefer a gift that is practical. A trait I inherited from my mother.
Christmas 2011 was the year I treated myself to a couple of new Camellias. One was growing as a shrub, the other was trained as a climber. After identifying a spot for them, I decided to have a go at training the climber as an sort of Espalier/Fan against the fence in the side garden. The border here is really quite narrow and has no scope to be widened. Growing it against the fence would take up the least amount of precious garden space.
It flowered beautifully it's first year, as the always do and when flowering was over, I planted it in it's new home. It settled in well and the following spring it had plenty of leaf buds. A sure sign it was happy. I knew not to expect flowers Spring 2012. Plants will often take 3 years to settle into a garden.
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| January 2013 - plenty of leaf buds forming, alas no flowers this year! |
This year however, it's a different story. With Camellias is often difficult to tell immediately if new buds are a leaf or a flower. As the weeks went by those buds fattened rather than unfurled. I knew I was going to have flowers this year. Admittedly, there wasn't many of them but they were there nonetheless. It's a start, right? 
A few more weeks went by but the buds seemed to be stuck in limbo. It had been warm, I couldn't understand why they remained tight. Then I thought about bud drop - I had all my fingers crossed that the plant would not suffer such loss. The summer may have been hot and dry but I did not forget to keep this plant well watered. I've learned enough to know that lack of water when the plant is forming it's flower buds is the main cause of bud drop. On a large mature plant it would not be an issue - they can afford to loose a few blooms here and there. Please, please, please Camellia God - don't make me wait this long only to watch in horror when the buds fall flat to the ground. Temperatures dropped this last week, low cloud, drizzle and mist for the last 5 days. I had spent little time out in the garden this week. As I walked up the path this afternoon, something caught my attention. Just as a watched pot never boils, it appears that a watched Camellia never blooms! There may not be many flowers but I'm well pleased that it has produced some this year.
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| Flowers are described as Formal semi double - pale blush pink or white |
When flowering is finished, I'll take the opportunity to tighten up the stems on the wires whilst they are still a bit flexible. I'm very pleased with my efforts - not bad for a beginner, I keep telling myself! Incidentally, I'm also having a go at Espalier with a rambling rose - more on the success of that later in the year.
A mistake I made at the beginning was to have the wires spaced too far apart. I originally spaced them 1ft apart but found that was a bit too wide - I introduced wires midway as a bit of an after thought. It seems to work a bit better, although there are a couple of wire that has no stems to grow along them. I don't know how to address this or if the chance to rectify this has passed. Have you any idea? I'm not unhappy with the shape and doubt my ability in producing one of those floral masterpieces I've seen. I don't think the formality as such would suit my style of gardening anyhow.
Have you ever attempted Espalier? I'd love to hear about it, it's a topic I've not come across on many blogs and most of the information out there tends to be of a technical nature and some or most of the terms are lost on me!
Once again, thank you all for reading and all that's left for me to say is I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend out in the garden. I'm hoping for good weather this week. The forecast tells me to expect it - time will tell!
