A few Camellias?

I mentioned in my earlier blog that I used to work for a guy who grew a few camellias. What I didn’t mention was that it was only a hobby for him in his retirement years. I did also say that he only grew a few. A few thousand that is.

Now you may ask why he grew so many and what he did with them. I will answer the latter question in another blog but for why he grew so many, I can explain.

The first reason was, because he could. His family had all grown up and were successful and taken over the family business and he had more money than he could otherwise spend so he spent some of it on Camellias. So He grew the seedlings at his home and then grew the plants onto the flowering stage at the Business’ country property where I worked alongside my brother.

The other main reason was, that he was not just into growing Camellias but he was into trying to propagate and find new types or colours in the flowers.

Many Camellias set seeds but the seeds themselves require special conditions to make them sprout, so whilst I have done it a few times, it is not an easy process. Secondly Camellias take up to seven years to flower before you have any idea what the colour or shape of the flower may be. And of the thousands literally that one might grow, although the flowers may be very pretty, the chances of getting a completely different and desirable flower/plant are few and far between. I don’t know how many thousands of Camellia seedlings my friend Len grew but I do know that He only ‘found’ one uniquely different enough to name and mass-produce and put on the commercial market. Its name was Pavlova, named after the desert Pavlova that was served one night at a Camellia Society Dinner in Honour of some visiting American Camellia lovers.

And I think by the time it was publicly released he had passed on. So you see a lot of time and effort, literally years of time and effort, went into a project that gave little to him personally financially but it did give him the chance to do what he loved and the opportunity to add something “new” hopefully to the Camellia world.

So you see a lot of work and a lot of plants, for just the sniff of finding something different. In my next blog I will tell you what Len did with his excess plants. Bur for now what about your hobby? How about you? Do you see everything you do or try, only in financial terms or are you prepared to give of yourself for years if necessary, to try and give something back to the world. Is there something that you would love to do and can afford to do that you could do? Not for your own benefit but for the wider community?