Today's Flowers: Camellia for a day

I hope everyone's New Year is off to a good beginning. New Year's Day was moderate so I decided to investigate and see if any more of the premature camellia buds had opened. Sure enough there was one which lasted less than 24 hours before a freezing cold New Year's night zapped it. The bloom was protected well inside the bush but even so, it is after all January so not surprising it had a short life.

Friday was our last day above freezing for the weekend, and I'm already worried about whether the camellia buds will slow down enough to survive winter. They are supposed to set their buds in the winter and bloom in the early spring. However, they do best when the buds are still tiny at the beginning of the year.

I'm a little more optimistic about the white camellias (above) than the red. The white ones seem a little big for this time of year but are at least tightly closed. Most of the red ones are already exposing their tips and two or three really jumped the gun and bloomed in the fall and winter.

I think a mild fall and fairly moderate early winter is the problem. Also considering the fact that for the next few weeks the lows will be in the low 20s F (- 6.6 celcius) and maybe some teens F (- 12.2 celcius), I'm afraid I'll lose a lot of camellias long before time to bloom in early March because the buds are so big already.

The pansies which were doing well with a few very cold nights but mostly mild days have finally given in to the cold. I feel lucky though to have spotted some blooms to start a new year, even if they are all frozen now.

Please visit the home of Today's Flowers for other participants.