With their bright pinks and reds, camellias provide a pop of color against a sometimes-bleak backdrop.
“Camellias are so versatile and help brighten the winter landscape. I think Southerners have a strong connection to them. It’s something they equate with a plant in their mother or grandmother’s yard,” Charlotte Wiedenman, vice president of the Aiken Camellia Society, said in a text message interview due to laryngitis.
The organization will host its annual Camellia Show from 1 to 5 p.m. Jan. 20 in the Stevenson-McClellan Building of St. Thaddeus Episcopal Church, 125 Pendleton St. S.W., Aiken.
More than 1,000 camellia blooms are expected to be featured in the show. Also, the Ikebana Society will showcase camellias; there will be an international table and a raffle for a Miss Aiken camellia plant. People will have the chance to talk to camellia experts.
Wiedenman has always loved camellias, even incorporating them into her wedding , but attending a show sparked a further interest in the winter blooms.
“I went to a show about 15 years ago when it was held at the Aiken Mall. I was absolutely amazed,” she wrote.
From there, she joined the society where she learned a lot about the plant and began showing her own camellias a year later.
“There is something wildly addictive about seeing first place stickers on your entries,” she wrote.
The Aiken Camellia Society started in 1955 and has held a camellia show every year. Its members helped establish the camellia collection at Hopelands Gardens.
The Aiken Camellia Society has about 75 members and meets the second Thursday of each month from October to March. The next meeting will be at 6:30 p.m., Jan. 11 at St. Thaddeus and will feature a camellia learning lab with an opportunity to learn how to enter the show, according to Wiedenman.
To learn more about the show, email Paul Greenway at greenwy@comcast.net.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for 35 years. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
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