• Attract birds to your yard with bird feeders. Delightful gold finches will be happy to visit your thistle feeders, and rufous-sided tohees will visit seed feeders.

• Gladiolus bulbs come in every color of the rainbow. Plant them this month for summer flowers.

• Turn in cover crops now and you will be ready to plant your summer garden in two or three weeks.

• Plant sunflowers now from seed or plants. Choose either the multi-stemmed kinds for cut flowers or the giants for edible seeds.

New Books for the Gardener

“The Sunset Western Garden Book” has been the “bible” of Western gardeners and nursery folks for over 80 years. With its unique climate zone maps for just the Western states and a special understanding of Western growing conditions, the Sunset Book is THE reference book for most California gardeners.

Newly released is the 9th Edition of “The New Sunset Western Garden Book,” complete with more than 2,000 full-color photographs. This is the first edition that includes a color photograph for every plant in its encyclopedia. And the red type for each plant name really stands out on the page. Over 9,000 plants are described in its pages.

There is an extensive “Plant Finder” section that lists Plants for Slopes, Deer-Resistant Plants, Plants for Shade, and Trees and Shrubs for Containers. It also lists Plants for Waterwise Gardens and Plants for Damp Areas as well as Plants that Attract Bees and Butterflies.

For special effects you can look through sections that list Flowering Trees and Shrubs, Fall Foliage, Plants for Fragrance and even Plants for Moon Gardens!

Flip to the back of the book for down-to-earth gardening information. You’ll learn about soils, how to plant a tree, growing in containers, how to grow herbs and how to design with perennials. There’s a lot of information on choosing and planting trees, “the backbone of the garden.”

There is information on choosing and growing vines, wildflowers, and how to create a wildlife habitat. Watering and fertilizing are covered in detail as well as how to protect your plants from frost, hot sun and midnight marauders.

It has a section on vegetable gardening, which tells you when to plant each kind of vegetable in your climate zone. There is also some information on when to harvest different crops.

If you are primarily interested in fruits and vegetables, Sunset has a new book called the “Western Garden Book of Edibles.” With complete instructions for growing over 190 vegetables, herbs, berries, fruits and nuts it is a very valuable reference book.

In the back of the book are detailed plans and design ideas for kitchen gardens of all sizes. It also has easy-to-follow guidelines for composting and building raised beds, arbors and trellises and garden paths.

The Practical Guide tells you about soil amendments, planting cover crops, starting from seed and using mulches. It also has color photos of many of the most common plant pests and diseases and a few of beneficial insects.

Both books will be fun to sit down with and discover some new plants and gardening tips and they will be nice additions to your gardening library.

• Summer flower bulbs can be planted now. Choose from gladiolus, dahlias, begonias, lilies and more.

• Flowering magnolias, or tulip trees can be grown in full sun or partial shade, as a lovely accent plant in any garden.

• Put up hummingbird feeders this month and enjoy these colorful and entertaining birds.

• Plant artichokes now. Fill a hole with one part humus and two parts soil and set out plants in full or part sun.

Versatile Potatoes

America’s most popular vegetable, the potato, can be boiled, baked, fried, microwaved, steamed, or roasted, with or without their peels. Combined with butter, sour cream, or oil they are rich and addictive, but left to themselves they’re quite low in calories and loaded with nutrients.

Potatoes with a high starch content, like russets, bake well and yield light and fluffy mashed potatoes.  Those with a low starch content, like red-skinned potatoes, hold their shape after cooking, and are great for making potato salads and scalloped potatoes.  Medium starch potatoes are called all-purpose potatoes, and they’ll work in most potato dishes. 

Baking potatoes are high in starch with a coarse, cork-like skin. For baked potatoes, Russet Burbank is the standard. But newer varieties like Rio Grande Russet and Norkotah Russet may give you higher yields. You can also have fine baked potatoes with Sangre 11, a red potato with white flesh, Mountain Rose, a red potato with red flesh, and Yellow Finn, a popular yellow potato. California White is also good baked.

Boiling potatoes are waxy and low in starch. They have a thin, smooth skin and are high in moisture and sugar, but low in starch. Many red potatoes are delicious boiled. Red La Soda is a classic boiler with sweet white flesh, and Sangre 11 is excellent for boiling and ranks high in taste tests. Red Gold has delicate yellow flesh and unique flavor. Modoc has bright red skin and is early maturing. Red Chieftain has dark red skin and white flesh and is slow to turn green in storage. Yellow Finn and Yukon Gold are also good boilers.

For mashed potatoes, look to Russets, of course, or Yukon Gold. Or try some of the reds like Mountain Rose, Red Pontiac or Red La Soda.

Salad potatoes need to hold up to boiling, so you can use Yellow Finn, Red Norland, and Red La Soda for salads. Colorado Rose, a red potato with white flesh, is also good for salads. All Blue, a blue potato with blue flesh, will add color and interest to your summer salads.

“All-purpose” potatoes are moister than baking potatoes and will hold together in boiling water. They are particularly well-suited to roasting, pan frying, and using in soups, stews, and gratins. They can be baked, mashed, and fried, but will not produce the same results as the bakers. Yukon Gold, Red Pontiac, California White and French Fingerlings fall into this category. Carola is a new yellow skinned potato with yellow flesh that is becoming very popular for its versatility and flavor.

Fingerling potatoes are gourmet potatoes that are more widely available now. There are many varieties of these small, finger-shaped potatoes, but they all tend to be low in starch, and great for roasting or making potato salads. Look for French Fingerlings, Russian Banana and Rose Finn Apple.

Try some new varieties and enjoy the many flavors of the versatile potato.

• Evergreen candytuft is a hardy perennial with bright white flowers set against dark green foliage. They bloom now and make a fine border plant.

• Spring feeding of trees and shrubs can begin now. Mulch with manure or apply fish emulsion or commercial fertilizers.

• Prepare for planting season! Turn in cover crops and do a soil test if your garden had trouble last year.

• Plant sweet peas for bouquets of delightful blooms.

Look What’s Blooming for Easter!

The cold, wet weather has certainly slowed down gardening activities, but many of the early bloomers in the garden are doing their best to remind us that spring is not far away.

Daffodils are real troopers in this weather. Day after day, they hold their flowers up high against the weather beckoning the sunshine. A drift I saw at the base of a clump of white birch trees was especially cheerful. Grape hyacinths make a carpet of blue in my garden where they are impervious to the weather.

Forsythia branches covered with bright golden flowers standout in the garden, and so do the leaves of variegated Euonymus, which look particularly bright yellow at this time of year. Purple wallflower, Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’, now adds its bright mauve flowers to the springtime palette. And the slender, green stems of Kerria japonica are about to burst forth with their double yellow “Japanese rose” flowers. Is it any wonder that purple and yellow are “Easter colors”?

The Tulip Trees or saucer magnolias are coming into their glory. Their pink or purplish red blooms are 4-inches across or more, and they cover the branches of this beautiful small tree.  For the month that is in bloom it is extraordinary. 

Viburnum ‘Spring Bouquet’ is living up to its name, and is so beautiful right now, that you want to stop and see what that glorious plant is. This hardy, evergreen shrub should have a place in every garden. One of its close relatives, Viburnum burkwoodii, has fragrant white flowers that appear in early spring from dense clusters of 4″ pink buds. The upright, multi-stemmed shrub has an open habit that is very lovely in the shade garden.

Some varieties of Rosemary are now in full bloom. Their bright blue flowers are very attractive set against the dark green, aromatic leaves. Given good drainage, they are one of our toughest and most versatile plants.

Camellias are an old-fashioned shrub that has stood the test of time. Some older specimens, which were probably planted when the houses were built, are as tall as the eaves. Their perfectly formed red, pink or white flowers cover the plants in April and are an invitation to come enjoy their singular beauty.

Dainty azaleas are just beginning to bloom. These profuse flowering shrubs can be used as a low hedge, in borders or in massed planting for an impressive color display. The flowers come in pink, red, white, purple and lavender and cover the evergreen leaves while they are in bloom. It’s best to plant hardy varieties in our climate.

Eastre, the Teutonic Goddess of Fertility, is rich with promise and potential life. At this time of new beginnings, we look forward with hope to a bountiful growing season ahead.

• Potatoes like to grow in the cool weather of spring. Plant them as soon as possible.

• Wildflower seeds can be broadcasted now on hillsides for colorful blooms and erosion control.

• Lettuce, cabbages, broccoli, onions and other cool-season vegetables can be set out with no frost protection. They will give you a delicious early harvest.

• Mouth-watering strawberries should be planted now for delicious berries this summer. Plant them in a sunny, well-drained bed.

Crisp, crunchy carrots

Carrots are one of the most popular vegetables, loved by young and old alike. And fresh carrots right from the garden are really a treat.

Carrots are easy to grow and every garden should have a good-sized plot of them. A loose, sandy soil that is free from stones is their main requirement. Rocks and hard clods make the roots deformed and cause them to split. Raised beds are ideal for carrots, just make sure the bed is deep enough for the roots.

Prepare the soil with compost but don’t add too much fertilizer. Carrot seeds are tiny and germinate best in damp soil when the soil temperature is between 50 and 60 degrees.

Sprinkle the seeds down a shallow trough and cover with a quarter inch of fine soil. Firm the soil and water gently.

The seeds must be kept constantly moist during the two to three weeks they take to sprout. If you have trouble getting carrot seeds to sprout, cover them with a layer of vermiculite, which will retain moisture, or lay a piece of burlap over the seed bed until the seeds germinate. As soon as they have their true leaves, when they are half an inch tall, it’s time to thin them. For baby carrots, thin plants to 1 inch apart, and for full-sized carrots, 2-4 inches.

Carrot varieties range from three inch miniatures to 12-inch tapers that need deep, well-worked soil.

‘Little Finger’ is an extra-early tender, sweet baby gourmet carrot that are nearly coreless. ‘Danvers’ is a popular variety with a strong top and smooth, tapered root that pulls up easily.

‘Chantenay’ is a standard variety that grows 5-8 inches long and does well in all types of soil. ‘Nantes’ and ‘Scarlet Nantes’ carrots are nearly cylindrical in shape, and are blunt and rounded at both the top and tip. Nantes cultivars are often sweeter than other carrots and have fine flavor that is sweet and full of carotene. They are excellent eating when young and tender, and also make good storage carrots.

‘Juwarot’ is an excellent variety for juice as it has twice the normal vitamin A content, and is a very tasty carrot. ‘Saint Valery’ is a large carrot, 10-12” long with 2-3” shoulder. Its flesh is fine-grained, sweet and tender with very little core, and it stores well in the ground.

‘Imperator’ carrots are the carrots most commonly sold whole supermarkets; their roots are long and tapered.

‘Solar Yellow’ and ‘Dragon’ will add variety to your carrot patch. ‘Solar Yellow’ is a variety of Danvers, and grows about 6 inches with a sweet flavor. ‘Purple Dragon’, or ‘Dragon’, is a purple skinned carrot with a bright orange interior that is very sweet. ‘White Satin’ carrots are sweet and juicy with a smooth flavor. They have more fiber than other carrots.

April is a fine month for planting carrots. Keep the soil moist and the bed weeded and in 2-3 months you should have a bed of carrots worth bragging about!

• Plant sweet peas for bouquets of delightful blooms.

• Forsythia, with its bright yellow flowers, is one of the first shrubs to bloom in the spring. Plant one in a sunny spot where you can enjoy its cheery flowers.

• Plant peas in well-drained soil for a spring crop. Protect from birds with bird netting or lightweight row cover.

• Primroses are bright and showy and bloom beautifully throughout the spring.

Tulip Trees make a dramatic focal point

To most people the term “tulip tree” refers to the beautiful saucer magnolias that are now coming into bloom. There are others who know the “tulip tree” to be the Liriodendron, a huge tree native to the eastern states. But this article is about magnolias.

“Tulip trees,” so called because of the shape and bright colors of their flowers, originated as a chance seedling from a cross of two species of Magnolia made by M. Soulange-Bodin near Paris, about 1820. They are named after him as Magnolia soulangiana. Unlike many other trees, they will bloom when still very small, making a nice show at only 2-3 feet tall. Blooms open in early spring before the leaves emerge.

Also known as saucer magnolias, there are many varieties with flowers ranging in color from white, to pink, to deep reddish purple. Blooms are six to ten inches across appearing before the leaves begin growing in the spring. The effect is very spectacular. ‘Rustica Rubra’ is a vigorous grower with large, reddish-purple flowers. ‘Alexandrina’ has large tulip-shaped blooms that are purplish-pink on the outside and pure white on the inside.

Saucer magnolias make fine lawn ornaments. They grow as large shrubs, with many stems, rather than single-trunked trees, and like the extra water that a lawn receives in the summer. They can be planted in full sun, or in partial shade, and grow to 20 or 25 feet tall, and almost as wide.

The star magnolia, Magnolia stellata, is another deciduous magnolia which comes to us from Japan. It produces white flowers in early spring before the leaves. The blossoms are composed of several long, strap-shaped petals that give a star-like effect. They are 3 to 4 inches in diameter. The variety ‘Royal Star’ has pink buds that open to fragrant, blush-pink blooms on a plant that grows 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide.

Star magnolia is a dense shrub or small tree and makes a fine specimen plant. It has twisting, irregular branches with pretty gray bark. The long, narrow leaves are thick and dark green, turning an excellent bronze in the fall. It is the first magnolia to bloom in the spring and one of the most attractive.

‘Dr. Merrill’ is a particularly fine variety with large, star-like white flowers that are fragrant. It grows to 25 feet tall and wide and when in bloom, the tree is a blizzard of white.

Magnolia ‘Elizabeth’ is a rare, yellow-flowered tree with tapered buds that open to large, primrose-yellow blooms. An upright, pyramidal grower to 30 feet tall and 15 feet wide, it makes a fine specimen tree.

Saucer magnolias are often planted along the edge or property line in combination with evergreen shrubs where they may get lost in the crowd until the showy blooms arrive in late winter. Magnolias thrive in full sun, but they flower satisfactorily under the high shade of neighboring trees.

“Tulip trees” and star magnolias are prize plants that add a touch of class and beauty to any yard.

• Spring vegetables love cool, moist weather and don’t mind a little frost. Set out lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, spinach and Swiss chard starts now.

• Apple trees are still available as bare-root trees, but only for a short while longer. Start your orchard now!

• Cut branches of forsythia, pussy willow, quince, spirea, and dogwood and bring them indoors to force them into bloom.

• For blue hydrangeas, apply aluminum sulfate around the plants this month.

“Irish” Potatoes

The history of the potato has its roots in the windswept Andes Mountains of South America. The Incas were cultivating them for a long time before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Peru in 1532 in search of gold. Though gold was scarce, potatoes were plentiful and the Spaniards took some with them when they left for home.

From Spain the lowly potato spread through Europe. In many places it was considered weird, poisonous and even evil, but in Ireland it found a home. The Irish were the first to seriously consider potatoes as an important food, and by 1688, they had become a staple of the Irish diet. By 1770 it became known as the Irish Potato.

The Irish became so dependent on the potato, that it displaced many traditional foods. In the 1840’s the potato crop became diseased and the “Great Famine” was the result. At the height of the famine (around 1845), at least one million people died of starvation.

Fortunately, thousands of varieties were still being cultivated in the Andes, where over 100 cultivars might be found in a single valley. Proper genetic diversity is the key to insuring a healthy potato crop.

Today we have a great number of potato varieties available to the home gardener. There are reds, whites, blues, yellows and russets. Reds may have white, yellow or rose-colored flesh, and blues or purples are bluish all the way through. Fingerling potatoes are small, finger-shaped potatoes, often yellow inside.

Potatoes should be planted as soon as the soil has dried out enough to turn it. Potatoes like cool weather, especially when the tubers start forming. The best crops are produced when the daytime temperature is in the 60°-65°F range. When the temperature goes over 84°, tuber production stops.

Potatoes can also be grown in large containers. Fill the container about one third full with potting soil. Put the seed potatoes on top of the soil, spaced about 6 inches apart, and at least 4 inches away from the sides of the container. Then cover them with two inches of potting soil.

When the plants reach 6 inches tall, add two or three inches of potting soil, covering the lower leaves of the plants. Repeat this every time the plants reach a height of 6 inches above the soil, until the soil is 2 inches from the top of the container. Try to keep the soil evenly moist through the growing season.

It is best to plant certified, disease-free potatoes sold at nurseries. About eight to ten pounds of seed potatoes will plant a 100-foot row and yield 50 to 100 pounds of potatoes. Plant your favorite varieties now, and look forward to those delicious, home-grown flavors.

• Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce and other cool season crops should be planted this month for delicious spring harvests.

• Rhubarb, the “pie plant”, can be planted now for mouth-watering pies for many years to come.

• Cherry trees are still available for bare-root planting, but only for a short while longer. Start your orchard now!

• Prune wisteria trees and vines by cutting out unwanted long runners and removing old seed pods. Don’t damage flower buds that are clustered at the end of short branches.

Bright New Roses

The line-up of bright new roses looks pretty appealing this spring. Wish reds and yellows, pinks and purples, there are roses that are perfect for almost any garden.

Start with the new, and only, AARS Winner this year: Sunshine Daydream. The light yellow Grandiflora, the first garden rose to win under no spray conditions, was selected as the best of the best after participating in the rigorous two-year AARS testing cycle. With fantastic bloom production and great vigor, this rose is sure to brighten any garden. The light yellow, cup-like flowers mature to a creamy yellow and are set off by its dark green, glossy foliage. With excellent disease resistance and a long blooming season this is truly a winner.

Another lovely yellow rose is Walking on Sunshine. This bushy floribunda rose sports tight clusters of fragrant, bright yellow buds that open to ruffled blossoms. Add in disease resistance and you have a great rose for any gardener.

Red is the color of the year and red roses are always popular. Firefighter is a large, intensely fragrant, classic Hybrid Tea rose. It was chosen as the first sponsorship rose of the ‘Remember Me’ garden fund to honor the victims of 9-11. This vigorous, bushy rose grows 5 to 6 feet tall and holds up well even in intense heat.

Purple Splash brings a new color scheme to climbing roses. Its wine-purple and white striped and speckled flowers bloom the first year with a moderately strong, spicy perfume. The mostly single flowers come in large clusters on canes that have minimal thorns. It will be a real eye-catcher in your garden.

For a bright rose with peach, coral and salmon all wrapped up in one beautiful flower, look for Colorific. Warm sunshine deepens the hues to orange, scarlet and burgundy, resulting in a festival of colors on each bush as new blooms open and others age. Strong, long stems are great for cutting and disease-resistance rounds out the colorful package.

White Licorice is a floribunda rose with ivory white blossoms touched with lemon-chiffon, that emit a powerful perfume. The hybrid-tea-shaped flowers bloom continuously all summer on sturdy stems. These beauties will look and smell lovely in a vase.

With lots of lovely roses to choose from, now is the time to check out the bright new roses for the new year.

• Raspberry, blackberry, loganberry, and boysenberry vines should be planted now for delicious, home-grown berries.

• Prune Hydrangeas now by removing old flower heads down to the first new leaves. Don’t prune stems which have no old flowers, and they will bloom first this summer.

• Fragrant daphne is an early-blooming shrub that will delight you with its strongly scented blooms each spring. Plant it in well-drained soil.

• Potatoes can be planted this month. Plant red, white, yellow and russet for a variety of uses and flavors.

Old King Cole

Cole is the old English word for cabbage, and if you measure this vegetable’s popularity by the mass consumption of cole slaw, cabbage deserves the status of Old King Cole. Since cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards and others are closely related to cabbage, they are known collectively as Cole Crops.

Two of the most popular cole crops are broccoli and cabbage. Increased interest in healthful foods has made broccoli a regular part of most American diets. And cabbage is one of our most versatile vegetables.

Many types of broccoli can be harvested for 4 to 6 weeks. They produce large heads, which are harvested first, and then many sideshoots which prolong the harvest. Broccoli should be harvested while the buds are blue-green in color and are tightly compressed.

Broccoli is a heavy feeder, so prepare the soil with compost, well-rotted manure or a balanced fertilizer before planting. Space plants 18 inches apart. Set the young plants 1″-2″ deeper then they grew in the pots. Remove weeds around young plants, and keep plants well watered during dry spells.

Cabbages are grown around the world and there are many different kinds to try, from the delicate, loose-leaf Savoy of France to the spicy mustard cabbage of China. Cabbage has a better texture and flavor when grown in enriched soil.

Early cabbages mature in about 60 days from transplanting. Early Jersey Wakefield is a top choice for thin leaves and sweet heads, and Copenhagen Market is also early with 3- to 4-pound heads.

Mid-season varieties hold well in the garden without splitting. Red Acre is an excellent red cabbage. Heads are deep red, globe shaped, 6 to 7 inches in diameter, and they make a colorful addition to the garden landscape.

Savoy cabbages are mid- to late-season producing. They have very tender, crinkled, mild-tasting leaves on a loose head. Their flexible leaves are good for cabbage rolls.

Late cabbage has very tight heads making it especially easy to prepare coleslaw or sauerkraut. They tolerate night temperatures in the 20s, so they’re good for winter gardens.

Cabbage isn’t difficult to grow, and the big payoff is flavor: homegrown crops taste sweeter than those sold in markets. Cabbage is undaunted by frost, and hardy kinds can withstand snow.

Other cole crops include Brussels sprouts and Chinese cabbage, which grow best as a fall crops, cauliflower, collards, kale, mustard, mizuna, kohlrabi and turnips. All like to grow in cool weather, so the time to plant them is now.

• Roses should be pruned if you haven’t done so already. Remove all old leaves on and around the bushes and spray with neem oil to prevent early pest and disease problems.

• Blueberries make delicious fruit on attractive plants that you can use in the orchard or the landscape. Choose varieties now.

• Thin raspberry canes to 4-6 inches apart. Cut back remaining canes to 3 feet tall.

• Clean out bird houses. Remove old nesting material and scrub the inside with a solution of one part bleach to nine parts water.

Spring Salad Greens

The crisp, chilly days of early spring are the right time to start planting early salad greens. These colorful leafy greens love cool, sunny weather and you will be picking them for the table in just a few short weeks.

As well as growing many types of lettuce, add variety to your salad with other greens such as rocket, mizuna, baby spinach and the classic mix of salad greens called ‘mesclun’. Mesclun mix typically includes endive, corn salad, rocket, chicory and various leaf lettuces in different colors – all in one seed packet.

If you’re not familiar with some of these, here are a few descriptions. Curly endive has curled leaves tinged with yellow and green. They are slightly bitter in taste, have a crunchy stem, and add a lot of texture to salads.

Arugula, possibly the best known salad green, forms the basis of many salads. Originating from the Mediterranean, this green tastes more peppery than bitter and is especially associated with Italian dishes like pesto.

Endive has a unique oval shape, soft satiny texture, and slight bitterness that makes it a great addition to any salad.

Radicchio grows as a small, deep-red-purple head, like cabbage. Its bright leaves are colorful in salads and when cooked, the red-purple hue turns brown and what was once bitter becomes sweet.

Escarole is a mildly bitter leafy green that is large and crisp. It is often used in soups and paired with beans, and is popular in Italian cuisine.

Baby beet greens can be grown in the early spring. When the leaves of the beet top are immature, they are tender and slightly spicy. The purplish-red veins are visually striking and can dress up any salad.

Asian salad greens are easy to grow in cool weather. Mizuna is a Japanese mustard green that has a relatively strong pungent flavor when compared to other salad greens. The small jagged edges that make mizuna look like miniature oak leaves add a lot of texture.

Tatsoi has small, rounded leaves with a mild, mustard-like flavor. Their texture is similar to that of baby spinach.

Depending on the exposure and temperatures of your garden site, it may be better to start seedlings indoors or in a cool greenhouse and then plant them out in about a month. When plants are about one inch high, you can begin thinning and eating the greens. Use scissors to cut or snap off the shoots. This will prevent the roots of the remaining plants from being disturbed and give the plants room to thrive.

Greens love cool weather, so take advantage of the sunny spring weather, and start something growing in your garden.

• Last chance to spray peach and nectarine trees for peach leaf curl before the buds break open. Use copper sulfate wettable powder for the best results.

• Spring vegetables can be planted now. Start your garden with broccoli, cabbage, lettuce spinach and chard. It pays to grow your own!

• Primroses, in their rainbow of colors, will light up your flower beds and boxes this winter and spring.

• Bare root fruit trees, grape and berry vines are still available. The best selection is available now.

Camellias: A Gift from Asia

A gift from the Orient to temperate gardens of the world, camellias have long held a position of esteem in their native lands. In China, Japan and Korea the camellia motif is a familiar decoration on everything from architecture to textiles.

It is known that one species, Camellia sinensis, has been grown for at least 3,000 years — not for its flowers but for its leaves, which are used to make tea. The first camellia arrived in Europe in the 1500s, but not until the 19th century were they imported for public use. Soon after, European nurseries started raising new varieties from seed, offering hundreds of named varieties by the end of the century. There are now over 3,000 named varieties.

The most commonly grown Camellias in California are varieties of Camellia japonica. Their perfectly shaped blooms stand out against their dark, glossy green leaves. Thousands of double camellia hybrids offer a large palette of colors from snowy white and bicolors to the deepest scarlet-red. They bloom over a long spring season.

Camellia sasanqua is an earlier blooming species with smaller, less double flowers. But they are just as showy, producing more flowers than the japonicas. They begin blooming in the fall and continue through the winter. Plants grow in a variety of shapes and sizes and they will tolerate full sun once established.

Camellias grow naturally in forest settings, where the forest floor is a thick, soft carpet of decaying leaves and twigs and the soil is loose and crumbly. Since California is much drier than eastern Asia, we need to modify our natural conditions to grow camellias well.

Fortunately, camellias are quite adaptable. Given a rich, humusy soil to live in, their care consists mainly of watering and fertilizing. They need protection from hot sun and strong winds, and do best with morning sun and afternoon shade. The roots should stay moist, but not soggy, at all times. A natural mulch kept around the plants will keep moisture in and improve the soil. Use bark, wood chips or oak leaves.

The first year, plants need only be watered and mulched. After that, you can fertilize with a commercial fertilizer formulated for camellias, or with cottonseed meal. Be sure the soil is moist when you apply any fertilizer. When in doubt use less, as camellias can be damaged or killed by too much fertilizer.

Unlike other flowering shrubs, camellias need no annual pruning to stay healthy and attractive. You can maintain their shape by taking two or three leaves with the bloom when cutting flowers. If a plant is not as bushy as you would like it to be, cut out last year’s growth in late spring and several branches will start below the cut.

Clean-up is important for healthy camellias. Remove faded flowers before they fall, especially any that have brown petals, an indication of petal blight.

Treat your camellias well and they will give you beautiful blooms each spring, and grow to be beautiful, large landscape plants.