The last few weeks have been peak camellia season and I should have liked to have spent a little extra time up at the collection checking on things while flowering continued. As it is there have been other things to do and I have instead spent less time on site.

All is not lost however. I do now have photos of almost everything in the collection that is going to flower this season. There are young plants, recently pruned plants and seriously unhappy plants that will not flower, fortunately not very many.

Take today; I had intended to spend the day up there but had to stay home because we had scaffolders in. It was also cold and windy, so I have been at the computer all day adding pictures for new sections and updating some old ones.

1C, 4C, 5A, 5B and 5C are now more or less complete. I am very glad to have finished with 5A for a while; so many anomalies and questions to resolve.

I’m also feeling quite pleased because I am reasonably certain that I have resolved one wrongly labelled plant, actually there are two of the same variety. In 5C, a European section, are two very compact, very free flowering bushes labelled ‘Perfecta’. The label says they are of French origin. They look out of place amongst the 19th century varieties that surround them. They are in fact ‘Perfecta’ (Jury), raised by Les Jury in New Zealand and distributed here by Trehane Camellias as ‘Perfecta’, a name already in use for two 19th century varieties from France and Italy. Trehane’s don’t seem to list it any more, too slow and tricky to propagate at a guess.

Camellia x williamsii ‘Perfecta’ (Jury)