Camellias aren’t really my cup of tea. I spent much of last week in Atlanta, inside a large room attending my Garden Writer’s board meeting. We did escape one day for a tour of Massee Gardens, the home of the Camellia Society of America. They had some 2000 cultivars of Camellias and they taught me that the plant that produces all of the world’s tea is actually a Camellia. They do have some lovely flowers that are produced on woody evergreen shrubs. Some were quite short and some were well over 3 meters tall. Maybe the fact that I will never see them in my garden is part of the reason for their limited appeal. Also I rarely, if ever, drink tea. They had a diversity of flower sizes and shapes all in the red, pink, white range. Some like “Yours Truly” pictured have variegated flowers and we learned that many of those varieties get their variegation from the infection of a virus. The breeders intentionally introduce the virus to develop new and interesting petal variegations in their varieties. They also do have some that are genetic variegations and these tend to be more stable and therefore more desirable. The gardens are certainly worth a visit if you are traveling in that area. It’s just a few minutes off the I75 if your are looking for an interesting break while traveling south. We also found a great store that belonged to a large Pecan orchard and indulged ourselves. In doing so we discovered that there are several varieties of Pecans commercially grown. The Atlanta Botanical Garden is also worth a visit. The Assistant Gardener stayed home and did a wonderful job of keeping all the Begonia seedlings alive and growing.

Now it’s time to answer a few of my reader’s questions. Don’t forget to check the front page of the Website for frequent short ideas for current gardening activities.