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Common Camellias' Cousins

Full of color and fluff in fall, sasanquas are simply spectacular

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RICHIE STEFFEN Camellia sasanqua 'Snow Flurry' is an especially hardy cultivar, bred to withstand freezing temperatures despite the delicate-looking beauty of its semi-double flowers.

IT'S HARD TO believe that there's a woody plant with one cultivar or another in full bloom from October through New Year's Day. And not just an inconspicuous, struggling little bloom, but a flower as extravagant as a peony or a poppy. And these ruffly flowers, centered with a big fluff of stamen, are set against glossy evergreen leaves. If I told you this shrub took up little space in the garden because it was at its best espaliered like a grape vine, you'd really start to think I was delusional. But truly, Camellia sasanquas are near-perfect plants too often overlooked for their common cousins, the spring-blooming Camellia japonica.

The first sasanquas I met were grown up against an old house in Magnolia, where the rhythm of their nut-brown trunks and the splay of their glossy leaves were a perfect complement to the brick façade. These camellias grew along a trellis, set about a foot out from the home's entry, so they were sheltered and had plenty of air circulation, important for camellia health and prolific bloom. Structural plants year-round, these camellias burst into a fan of hot-pink blooms in November, and look spectacular

A few to look for


There are a great many pretty sasanqua camellias to choose from, with a variety of flower forms and colors as well as plant shapes. Among them:

• 'Autumn Sunrise' vigorous; one of the earliest and heaviest bloomers; red-tipped white flowers.

• 'Bonanza' pink-red, semi-double flowers on a spreading plant

• 'Midnight Lover' deep, intense red

• 'Pink Butterfly' especially large, shell-pink flowers

• 'Stephanie Golden' a new vivid pink cultivar with a light, rosy fragrance.

Two of the most popular sasanquas offer a red-flower, green-leaf color scheme just in time for Christmas. The long-blooming 'Christmas Rose' is a soft red, and the compact, lipstick bright 'Yuletide' is ideal for growing in a pot by the front door for the holidays.

Fragrant, frilly C. sasanqua 'Setsugekka' were the first plants I bought for my new garden. Three of them are trained along a hogwire fence, interplanted with cotoneaster (C. salicifolius 'Rothschildianus'). The yellow stamen in the center of the snowy white camellias pick up the yellow of the cotoneaster berries to warm up the garden on dark November days, and the evergreen leaves provide year-round privacy. Or anyway, that's the plan. I'm having a hard time waiting until they grow large enough to cut branches to bring inside, for sasanquas combine sumptuous bloom with a graceful Asian line when loosely arranged in a vase. All at a time when the rest of the garden is mostly asleep.

If your garden has blasts of wintry wind or you're in a slightly colder zone, look for the new hybrids bred from C. sasanqua crossed with the Chinese species C. oleifera for extra cold-hardiness. 'Snow Flurry' is a pure white anemone-flowering camellia, one of the first to open in autumn; 'Autumn Spirit' has deep pink petals. Both look so delicate you can't believe they're particularly freeze-resistant.

Most sasanquas grow to about 15 feet high, and they do well in containers with a little clipping of the longest branches. Some afternoon shade is preferred, but sasanquas tolerate more sun than the spring-flowering camellias and flower most enthusiastically when grown in the sun. They tolerate a variety of soil types, for in their native homelands of China and Japan, sasanquas grow in conditions from creek gullies to hot hillsides. For best performance, plant sasanquas in the same rich, acid soil that suits rhodies and azaleas.

In the first year, sasanquas need plenty of water to get well-established. Once settled, these are low-maintenance plants that can get by on little supplementary water. Drought might reduce flowering, but won't kill the plant. A dose of fertilizer in springtime pushes growth, and a light-handed pruning after flowering keeps them shapely. You can save garden space by espaliering them on a fence or trellis. It's not hard to keep these naturally lanky plants only a foot and a half deep by training them horizontally and cutting off branches that persist in spreading outward. The sasanquas can also be grown as a hedge, clipped smooth each year right after bloom, or as a specimen plant left in its own natural shape.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.