Yuri Panchul

Also posted in http://sazanka.org

This month The International Camellia Society put two of my camellia photo pictures to the front page of their website. One is a picture of Camellia japonica ‘Kamo Honnami’ (see their website), and another is a picture of Camellia grijsii, a species related to C. sasanqua:

C. grijsii

Camellia grijsii (长瓣短柱茶 in Chinese) Hance (1879) is a wild species of section Paracamellia. It is related to C. sasanqua, C. oleifera and C. kissii. It was collected in 1861 in Fujian by C.F.M. de Grijs. It is distributed in China (Fujian, Hubei, Sichuan, Guangxi) and used for a high-quality oil production. C. grijsii is closely related to another species - C. yuhsienensis, that is a parent of a popular cultivar ‘Yume’.

I got my two plants of C. grijsii from Nuccio’s Nurseries. The first one (shown above) has single white flowers and the second one is a double-flowered Chinese cultivar called ‘Zhenzhucha’:

Camellia grijsii ‘Zhenzhucha’

Camellia grijsii has great hybridizing potential. Two plants in my garden have small leaves with impressed veins and very columnar shape. I believe there are also varieties with larger leaves, but I am specifically interested in small-leaved cultivars.

Another great feature of C. grijsii is its cluster-flowering habit. However in my garden C. grijsii flowers from January to March, so it will be a challenge to cross it with Fall-flowering sasanquas. Probably I will have to store some pollen from sasanquas in refrigerator for a couple of months.

Another problem is chromosome number. According to Kondo and his associates it has a variety of chromosome numbers 2n = 30, 60, 75 and 90 (see the reference in Collected Species of the Genus Camellia, an Illustrated Outline by Gao Jiyin, Clifford R. Parks and Du Yuequiang).
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Also posted in http://sazanka.org

I got two awards on 2008 National Camellia Show at Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. I took part in photography competition.

The first photo picture is of species Camellia puniceiflora from section Paracamellia:

Camellia puniceiflora (粉红短柱茶 in Chinese) Chang 1981. A wild species distributed in China: Zhejiang, Hunan. Small leaves, grows up to 2 m (6 f) high.

The second photo picture is of sasanqua cultivar called Chojiguruma:

Chojiguruma, 丁子車 in Japanese. Means “a wheel of anemone” in Japanese. Introduced in 1789. Originated in Kansai, spread to many places. This anemone form is very rare for C. sasanqua cultivars.

The complete list of all results of the Camellia Photography Show is below:
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I wrote this text for the website www.sazanka.org, which I created back in 2003 and radically redesigned using Wordpress at the end of 2007.

“Sazanka” is a Japanese name of the ornamental shrub Camellia sasanqua and two related hybrid camellia species - C. x hiemalis and C. x vernalis. Non-Japanese people call it “sasanqua”. On our website we call it “The Flower of Autumn Sun”, because sasanqua flowers from September to January and loves sun. Every fall sasanqua gives its lovers a magnificent show of flowers.

We developed this web site for sasanqua lovers, gardeners, breeders and scientists to exchange cultural and botanical information as well as to maintain photo database of sasanqua cultivars.

Camellia sasanqua ‘White Doves’. The Japanese name is ‘Mine-no-yuki’ meaning “Snow on the Ridge”. Introduced in 1898.
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I wrote this book review for http://sazanka.org

“The Nomenclature of Japanese Camellias and Sasanquas” ( 日本ツバキ・サザンカ名鑑 , Nippon Tsubaki　・ Sasanqua Meikan) is another “must have” book for any serious sasanqua lover. This book was published in 1999 by the Japanese Camellia Society ( 日本ツバキ協会編 , Nippon Tsubaki Kyoukai Hen) and Seibundo Shinkosha Co. Ltd. (　誠文堂　新光社　). This book is a work of more than 50 people who collected high-quality photo pictures and information on more than 2200 japonica and 200 sasanqua cultivars.
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Also posted in http://sazanka.org

Today the newspaper San Francisco Chronicle published my photo picture of the Camellia hybrid ‘Yuletide’. The photo appeared in as an illustration to an article written by Demetra Bowles Lathrop. The name of the article is “Happy blooming New Year! Camellias, hellebores, winter hazel can brighten desolate Bay Area gardens” and it appeared in the gardening section.

Сегодня, 10-го января, газета Сан-Франциско Кроникл напечатала мою фотографии камелии ‘Юлетайд’. Фотография иллюстрирует статью журналистки Деми Латроп про растения, цветущие в области Сан-Францисского залива во время Нового Года.

Yuletide. C. x vernalis. Originated by Nuccio’s Nurseries, California in 1963. A seedling of ‘Hiryu’.

You can get the article from the newspaper’s website:
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Also posted in http://sazanka.org

A couple of week ago I got a call from journalist Lili Singer, who needed some information about Camellia sasanqua for her article in Los Angeles Times. Today this article was published. You can see my sasanqua cultivar recommendations in the article.

Пару недель назад мне позвонила журналистка Лили Сингер из газеты Лос-Анжелес Таймс. Лили собирала информацию для своей статьи об осеннецветущем кустарнике Камелии горной (Camellia sasanqua), которую японцы называют “сазанка”. Сегодня, 30-го ноября, статья была напечатана. В ней перечислены рекомендованные мною сорта камелий и приведена ссылка на мой вебсайт http://sazanka.org

Dwarf Shishi. A seedling of ‘Shishigashira’. Originated by Toichi Domoto, California in 1988.

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Российский журнал “Цветоводство” во 6-м номере (ноябрь-декабрь) за 2006 год опубликовал мою статью про питомник камелий семьи Нуччио.

Я также написал статью на английском языке на эту же тему и поместил ее на мой сайт www.sazanka.org.

A leading Russian ornamental horticulture magazine Tsvetovodstvo published in its November-December 2006 issue my article about the famous Nuccio’s Nurseries in Altadena, California. I also wrote another article in English about Nuccio’s and put it on my website www.sazanka.org (although these two articles are not translations of each other). Here is an excerpt from the article written in English:

Nuccio’s Nurseries is a medium-size family-owned wholesale and retail nursery specializing in growing and hybridizing Camellias and Azaleas. Nuccio’s is well known as one of the richest Camellia nursery in the United States in terms of number of cultivars and species available for sale - more then 600. Nuccio’s family is one of the most recognized sources of Camellia and Azalea introductions worldwide.

A photo picture of Nuccio’s Nurseries, Inc:

Organic farming is the technology of growing vegetables without using synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The success of organic farming in the United States has happened because many people started to buy expensive “organic” vegetables, reasoning that it is good for their health and the environment. Over the years, organic farming became more then just a technology - government started to give organic farmers certifications and new non-profit organizations like Ecology Action started to promote organic farming with armies of followers all around he globe. But the basic question remains - is the organic farming movement based on sound science? It appears that organic farming is mostly based on people’s misunderstanding of plant physiology, past failures of mainstream agriculture and the desire of organic farmers to maintain their high profit margins.
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I won an award and medal at Dahlia show in San Leandro, California, on August 8, 2003. The cultivar is Red Velvet, Waterlily type, 606 WL R TIC 63. The cultivar originator is Tickner, Australia, 1963.

Я получил приз и медаль на выставке георгин в Сан-Леандро, Калифорния, 8-го августа 2003-го года. Культивар называется Красный Вельвет (Red Velvet), нимфейного типа. Культивар выведен Тикнером (Tickner) в Австралии в 1963-м году.