Camellia Sasanqua
‘Pink-A-Boo’
You will see some camellias blooming in the greenhouse. These are the Sasanqua camellias. These are the fall-blooming camellias as opposed to Camellia japonica which blooms in late winter and early spring.
Sasanqua camellias are beautiful plants with some differences from the japonica types. Both the leaves and flowers are smaller. The flowers are usually single varieties. These shrubs tolerate more sun than the japonica types and full sun is fine as long as there is adequate moisture. After established, plants are surprisingly drought tolerant.
Sizes vary and range from tall-growing (‘Setsugekka’) to smaller, ground-cover varieties (‘Shishgashira’). The taller varieties make beautiful hedges as well as specimen plants. Lower-growing varieties are good choices for foundation plantings as well as border plants.
Here are some of the varieties we carry –
‘Yuletide’ has bright red flowers with yellow stamens. Like the name suggests, it is usually flowering around Christmas. Shrubs can become quite large (up to 10′ with time) and are very dense.
‘Kanjiro’ is another upright, dense-growing camellia with bright pink semi-double blooms with yellow stamens.
‘Setsugekka’, a popular white flowered variety with wavy edges, is a vigorous grower and is a good choice for a hedge or dramatic specimen plant.
‘Pink-A-Boo’ is a sport of ‘Yuletide’ and has fragrant, deep-pink blooms with yellow stamens. Grows 8 – 10 feet.
‘White Doves’ has clear white semi-double blooms on a 6 – 9 ft. shrub.
