Camellias and magnolias mix well

Press, 5 July 1985, Page 14

Camellias and magnolias mix well

GARDENERS W DIARY

Derrick Rooney

One of the most welcome sights in my garden this winter is a good crop of flower buds on one of the less common shrubs, a camellia of the Wabisuke type. I’ll explain why in a minute, but first I would like to write briefly about the Wabisuke camellias, which are a group of single-flower forms, cultivated mainly in Japan. A few have found their way into Western gardens, but they are not common. Wabisuke camellias are characterised by erect growth habit and trumpetshaped flowers. Though they are a Japanese speciality, they are belived to be of Chinese origin. The parentage is undetermined. Some Japanese botanists have suggested that the group might have resulted from crosses with the largeflowered Yunnan camellia, C. reticulata, but Western experts have largely discounted this theory. A more acceptable suppostion is that they resulted from ancient crosses between the common Camellia japonica (which grows in China) and the tea plant, C. sinensis, which has been cultivated in China since very early times. In Japan there are numerous cultivars of the Wabisuke type, but in New Zealand it has not been customary to distinguish within the group — perhaps because only one has been in commerce here in recent years, and that one has become very scarce.

I haven’t seen it for sale for a while, but someone must have propagated it, because the specimen in my garden came from a garden centre (I can’t remember

which one); it appears to be indistinguishable from a camellia which was labelled “Wabisuke” in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, and the propagation material may have come from that source. The medium-sized flower is warm, clear pink and is a classical trumpet shape. When it does flower, that is. My plant was very severely checked some years ago in a late frost in early summer and as the succeeding summers were very dry it made little new growth for several years. Last spring, there were just a couple of flowers, the. first since the check, and this year there are quite a few buds, so the bush is getting back to normal, I hope. The irony is that I planted the bush because I had read somewhere that bellbirds were attracted to the Wabisuke camellias. There weren’t any bellbirds around at the time, but they came in of their own accord during the years when the camellia wasn’t flowering, and last year they ignored it, spending most of their time in the flowering plums, crab-apples, and grevilleas at the other end of the garden. Perhaps they’ll find Wabisuke next spring. I believe, incidentally, that it may be the variety known in Japan as “MomoiroWabisuke.”

Another unusual camellia, but of American origin, for which I must try to find room soon is “Flower Girl.”

This is one of a series raised in California from crosses between the autumn and winter-flowering sasanqua types from Japan, and the Kunming reticulatas from China.

“Show Girl,” is another well-known name in the series but I prefer “Flower Girl” which has large blooms in spinel pink and is spectacular when well grown.

Magnolias make good companions for camellias because most of the wellknown garden varieties flower about the same time as camellias, in complementary colours, and although they may be slow starters their greater ultimate size can provide a little bit of much-needed sun shelter for camellias in midsummer. As most magnolias are deciduous, they let in the sunlight in winter when the camellias need it.

The most common garden magnolias are the various forms of Magnolia soulangeana, which resulted from crosses originally made in France between the Yulan magnolia, M. denudata, and the smaller M. liliflora, also of Chinese origin.

However, a number of new types have come on the market in recent years, and I have just planted one of these, “Star Wars.”

This vigorous garden hybrid resulted from a cross between the giant of the genus, Magnolia campbellii, and M. liliflora. It flowers freely from an early age and has large, sumptuous blooms of waxen pink. The only thing I will have to watch about it is its size. Its seed parent, M. campbellii, may take a few generations to get there, but it is a tree capable of growing to a height of more than 30

metres, and even if the hybrid comes only halfway between its parents it will be big. Native to the Himalaya from Nepal to Assam, M. campbellii was introduced to Britain about 1865, and is thought to have first flowered in the Brtish Isles at Lakelands, in County Cork, about 1885. The flowers are waxen-textured and enormous, up to 25cm across, but do not appear until the tree is 20 to 30 years old. Some fine specimens may be seen in public parks, but few private gardeners have either the space to grow it or the time to wait for it.

Fortunately there is a substitute — the Chinese form of the species, the variety mollicomata. Most of the “Magnolia campbellii” trees planted in New Zealand in recent years are probably mollicomata, which flowers at a younger age, only nine to 12 years from seed. The two forms differ in the hairiness of the ovaries of the flowers and in ultimate size, M. mollicomata being a rather small tree.

Numerous horticultural forms of both have been named, and there are some “hybrids,” of which one that is fairly readily available in New Zealand is “Charles

Raffill.” This has flowers which are deep purple on the outside and white within. Raised at Kew Gardens, London, in the 1940 s by the well-known plantsman of the same name, “Charles Raffill” won an Award of Garden Merit at Wisley in 1963. The other parent of “Star Wars,” Magnolia liliflora, is a deciduous shrub capable of growing to 4m but usually less. It has been cultivated in Britain since the late eighteenth century, and in Japan for much longer. However, its country of origin is thought to be China.