The second picture to appear in my new book Zen of Watering Your Garden is of a double flowered variegated hybrid Camelia japonica. I believe it is variety Edna Bass. I keep my camelia garden well-mulched. I have a large number of well established plants on a slope under very high pine trees. I use azalea camelia fertilizer twice a year and water only when there has been no rain. The flowers are big and lush and beautiful. The one in the book has just been watered.
Camelia societies and competitions are a very big deal in the Deep southern U. S. However, I have never submitted a flower to a competition because I find in a bit of an affront that man if not all of the growers manipulate the plant by removing buds and by adding gibberillic acid ( they call it gibing the flower) to get extra large flowers.
The hybrids are prized both in Japan and in the Southern U.S. for their size color and beauty often blooming , especially the early ones when not much else in the garden is blooming certainly not in the spectacular way. I do not know if these have a cultural significance in Asia. Of course these are close relatives to Camelia sinesis is the source of tea.
