Camellias – and Garden – Open to the Public

It’s getting cooler and the camellias are flowering. What a great time of the year for the camellia fancier. Sasanquas have been flowering for a few weeks now with some still to come – and the early japonicas are showing lots of blooms.

Our ‘open days’ are not fancy affairs – it just means that folk can visit and see the camellias – and the magnolias and Vireya rhododendron and azaleas and others things – in flower. You can wander our garden and perhaps buy some for yours.

We do have arguably the largest range of camellias around here but we often do not have large numbers of the 200 or so different varieties that we have available. We don’t grow every variety in the gallery every season. The ‘early birds’ get the pick of the camellias. Our open days as listed in our February 2020 post are still current. All the shows listed are cancelled except for the Queensland Garden Expo which has been postponed until September – so we will be open here those days instead. As usual, the health controls are in play and we ask people to be patient. We do not usually get more than a couple of visitors at a time which suits us nicely.

We have spent some time over the past weeks fertilising our garden camellias with an organic fertiliser, horse manure and mulch. I know we say that fertilising should be done well before now – but well, if you haven’t done it when you should have, then now is the next best time. We have regularly followed this regime with good results. Now for some rain ….. please.

Come and visit, our 400 garden camellias are looking great. We are open Friday and Saturday 15 and 16 May – and for the next few. Other times, please just give us a call.

Happy gardening – and stay safe.

Japonica Kick Off – an early one

Camellia Glen – Camellias – Open Days 2015

Camellia Glen – Camellias – Open Days 2015

It’s late March and it’s camellia time again. Our first sasanquas – Mikuni Ko, Sparkling Burgundy, Bonanza, Gay and a few others are in full flower and looking wonderful. But it is 30 degrees celsius out in the garden and it’s dry again. That is unseasonally warm for us, as we are into autumn and we should be having at least cooler nights. We need a few showers of rain to freshen everything up. It seems strange after the 300 plus mm of rain – that’s about 12 inches – that we had in February.

The sweet pollen fragrance from the sasanquas is all around as you walk the garden. The tea camellia, Camellia sinensis, is flowering – and the bees are loving it – there are hundreds of bees in these bushes, as well as all the sasanquas. All the nectar loving birds are into them as well – makes a mess of the flowers, but that’s ok. Who says you need natives…..

The early japonicas, Arejishi and Alba Plena have their first flowers. The others are all budded up and we will see more and more over the coming weeks.

We have had a number of visitors wanting camellias already and people are asking when we will start our open days. So, we start just after Easter – weekends unless specified, as detailed below. Our open days just mean that we are open to the public, you can wander the gardens, and we will have plants for sale. Most of our plants are in 140mm pots.

Open Days

Saturday and Sunday 11 & 12 April 8.00 am to 3.00 pm
Monday to Friday 13 to 17 April – please call to confirm – 5445 0333 or sales@camelliaglen.com
Saturday 18 April 8.00 am to 3.00 pm
Saturday and Sunday 25 and 26 April 8.00 am to 3.00 pm

Saturday and Sunday 2 and 3 May 8.00 am to 3.00 pm
Saturday 9 May 8.00 am to 3.00 pm
Sunday 10 May CLOSED – Mother’s Day
Saturday 16 May CLOSED

Sunday 17 May open 8.00 am to 3.00 pm

Saturday and Sunday 23 and 24 May 8.00 am to 3.00 pm
Saturday and Sunday 30 and 31 May 8.00 am to 3.00 pm

Saturday and Sunday 6 and 7 June – OPEN – or see us at Maleny Gardening on the Edge
Saturday and Sunday 13 and 14 June CLOSED – Queensland Camellia Society Day here at Camellia Glen
Saturday and Sunday 20 and 21 June – 8.00 am to 3.00 pm
Saturday and Sunday 27 and 28 June 8.00 am to 3.00 pm

Saturday and Sunday 4 and 5 July CLOSED – See us at Queensland Camellia Society Show and Bloom Competition – Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens Toowong on SUNDAY 5 July. Open to the Public for a small entry charge.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday 10, 11,and 12 July – CLOSED – see us at Queensland Garden Expo, Nambour. www.qldgardenexpo.com.au

Saturday and Sunday 18 and 19 July 8.00 am to 3.00 pm

Saturday and Sunday 25 and 26 July 8.00 am to 3.00 pm

We will have other days in August – to be confirmed.

See the web site for BIGS – Brisbane International Garden Show – Pine Rivers Park, Strathpine – 8, 9, 10 and 11 October.
www.brisbanegardenshow.com.au

Come and visit, we have some 300 camellias in the garden, some azaleas, vireya rhododendron and a few magnolias and michelias. We have about 200 different varieties of camellia for sale – there is sure to be something that you like.

Get out into the garden today…

Sasanqua Sparkling Burgundy

Japonica Alba Plena


Camellias – they are flowering!

What a summer we have had here! 2012, in July, August, September and October we had 21mm of rain. November 72mm and in December just 31mm. This was certainly the longest dry we have experienced here on the Sunshine Coast in the 14 years we have been here. Water for nursery plants was ok but we were not able to keep sufficient to the 400 or so plants in the gardens. The ones under part shade fared well enough, but others dropped leaves, looked poor and failed to put on any new spring and summer growth.

This was of some concern when we started taking cuttings in December – many plants did not have quality material for cuttings and as a result, we will be short of some varieties in 2014.

Then it rained and blew as the tail end of cyclone Oswald came down the coast – from 24 January we had at least 500mm in 5 days and so far in February (it’s 24th today) we have had another 270mm. We are expecting more today if the reports turn true. So, where we had dry brown grass, now we can’t mow it quickly enough – plants that had dropped leaves are putting on new growth – somewhat unseasonally – but the plants will do what they need to do at the right time for them. The early sasanquas, particularly Mikuni-ko, are flowering with spot flowers on Bonanza, Sparkling Burgundy and flower buds are sucking up that moisture ready to burst out over the coming weeks.

Japonicas that failed to put on new spring growth are now showing 20 and 30cm of new growth – and budding up on the old wood at the same time. With this amount of moisture in the ground now, we should have a good showing over the next 6 months.

During the ‘ex-cyclone’ event, we lost power for 3 days. Apart from some inconvenience in the home, our concern was that the cuttings we had taken in December were not getting the constant misting that give them the best chance of callousing and putting on roots. Whereas we have had some leaf drop, we are hopefully confident that out strike rate will pick up.

Open Days

As we start the flowering season, we have had many gardeners calling in to purchase camellias for their gardens. We will start our open days over the weekend 13 and 14 April and then each weekend in April. We will also open in May, June and July. Watch this for dates.

Dates to remember

30 June – Queensland Camellia Society display – Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens – Randall Studio. We will have plants to sell.

5, 6, 7 July – Queensland Garden Expo – Nambour – best show in the country – see us at stall #291. www.qldgardenexpo.com.au

We are also happy to do mail order for those who cannot visit us – east coast Australia at this stage. Email us..

Happy gardening


Open to the public again 28 and 29 July – Camellia Grafting – Gardening

The Nursery will be open again Saturday 29 and Sunday 29 July – 8.00am to 3.00pm.

Apologies to the folk who visited this past weekend and who were turned away or found us closed. We had a bit of an issue which ended up with me in an ambulance and off to hospital – but nothing broke and we are back on deck.

So we will be open to the public again 28 and 29th July. Come for a drive, walk the garden – now that the rain has stopped – enjoy the camellias – and buy some, if that is what you would like.

Grafting – now is probably the best time to try grafting that favourite camellia if you are wanting to get a few new plants of difficult to acquire varieties. Quite a number of japonica camellias are inconsiderately difficult to propagate from cuttings which we prefer to take in summer (December and January for us) when the new growth is just hardening off, and many reticulata camellias just about have to be grafted to be able to get a nice plant within a reasonable time.

There are many places on the internet that will give tips on grafting. Now is a good time to give it a try.

Some folk have indicated that some of their camellias are looking poorly – and one possible reason for us is the considerable rain we have had lately in SE Queensland. Have a walk around your garden and see where the water runs, either on the surface or below the surface, see if the water lies around for a few days or the ground is wet and slushy for an extended period of time. These are areas that camellias will not like – it is quite possibly too wet. Camellias insist on a well drained soil, and moving your new camellia plants to a better position, or one prepared so as to give good drainage, will give you better results. Using coarse sand or gravel mixed in with the back-fill and mounding the plant up on a little hill is often sufficient to give enough drainage for the plant to survive those high rainfall events.

This is a great time in the garden with many camellias in full bloom, some just starting and the retics yet to reach their peak – our magnolias are starting to colour up with flowers on Felix, Vulcan, Picture, Brozzonni, Royal Crown, Butterflies, soulangeana x Rustica Rubra (one of my favourites) along with many michelias like Silver Cloud and All Spice, with their fragrance filling the air all around the garden.

The vireya rhododendrons are still flowering up with a dozen or so flowering with their heads of pinks, yellows, orange, bi-colour and reds splashing their colour around the garden.

Get out and enjoy it.

If it’s cold, put some extra clothes on, if it’s hot then take some off – just remember to be sun smart and leave your hat on!

What a great time of the year to be a gardener!


Queensland Garden Expo – Nambour Showgrounds 8 + 9 + 10 July

Camellia Glen Nursery will again this year have a very extensive range of camellias available at the Qld Garden Expo. This Garden Expo is acknowledged as the best event of its kind and well worth a visit for every garden enthusiast, or anyone who just enjoys a great day out in the garden. See the website at www.qldgardenexpo.com.au

Although we will probably not have every variety that we grow at the show, we will have about 120 varieties of camellia sasanqua, japonica, hybrids and species. We will also have a range of Vireya rhododendron. Come and see us there.

We will be open to the public again for three weekends following the Expo:
Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 July
Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 July
Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 July

Each day 8.00 am to 3.00 pm. No EFTPOS.