Surrounded by hundreds of colorful petals, gardening enthusiasts attended Augusta’s first Camellia Show since the pandemic on Saturday at a local church to show off dazzling flowers.
With 777 blooms lining tables with a variety of colors, owners of ribbon-winning Camellias proudly displayed their flowers to the community after trading gardening tidbits and tricks with fellow participants and judges.
“This is definitely more than we were expecting for our first year back, which is very good,” said Show Chairman Bryan Halterman. “I think we have more than Aiken had two weeks ago, but that was because of the freeze and cold weather we had.”
Halterman said the event’s success was thanks to 12 judges and several volunteers, along with local participants.
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“All but one of our judges traveled to be here,” he said. “And I’ve learned many things from them to help improve my own blooms.”
Offering many categories for the different varieties of camellias, Halterman said the competition is based on set rules. One of these rules states all entered camellias must be grown on an exhibitor’s established residence of at least two years.
“This is a cooperative show with the American Camellia Society, and we follow all their rules,” he said. “You can’t just pick a bloom on the sidewalk from someplace and enter it.”
Although Halterman’s favorite part of the show is meeting new people and developing friendships, he said the event’s ultimate goal is to interest attendees in camellias and encourage them to try their hand at the craft.
By offering a plant sale from an expert camellia farmer, Halterman said inspired parties can immediately buy a young camellia plant and start working on their own entry for next year.
“Hopefully, some of these people will buy a camellia and learn how to better cultivate them, so we can have more,” he said.
As attendees were awed and competitors gazed and admired each others’ flowers, judges were seen answering several questions about the unique flowers and educating novice participants.
Head Judge Richard Buggeln said he bases his top selections on symmetry, size, freshness and color.
“With all these blooms you have to be very organized, otherwise it’ll be chaos,” said Buggeln.
Blooms were separated into many different categories and winners were later set on special tables, such as “best blooms” for first place winners or “the honor court” for second place.
Competitive categories included trays of three, miniatures, large blooms, those grown in protection and those without, as well as the many varieties from Camellia reticulata to Camellia japonica.
However, to Buggeln, some of the most beautiful and interesting camellias are those that are grown with viruses, which allows for streaks of white, red or pink to mix into a flower’s petals.
“People introduce a virus to the flower so they grow that way,” he said.
With multiple varieties originating in Japan and China, the camellias even offer a slice of culture with their many different uses.
“The Chinese use the sinensis variety’s leaves to make tea,” said Buggeln. “They are real small too – about a quarter of an inch.”
For local novices, the show opened the doors for gardening aficionados to meet new friends in the community while gaining insight on camellias from experts.
“This is just really cool,” said Sheryl Alba, a first time competitor and novice winner. “I think this is so entertaining and it’s really educational. You’d be surprised on how much there is to know.”
Describing the show as “fun,” Alba said she was completely surprised to see so many kinds of camellias and to witness how enormous they could grow.
“Some of them are just incredibly fancy,” she said. “There are just so many different types … I’m just so excited I could get down here.”
As camellia lovers left the show with ribbons and new plants, Halterman said he hopes to see many returning and new faces for next year’s show.
“Hopefully this will just build, build and build,” said Halterman.
For those who missed the Augusta Camellia Show, the Mid-Carolina Camellia Society and the Garden Club Council will host an exhibition on Saturday, March 2, in honor of recently deceased Doris Kahn. The show will take place noon to 4 p.m. in the Garden Club Council Building, located at 1605 Park Circle in Columbia, S.C.
Liz Wright is a staff writer covering education, lifestyle and general assignments for The Augusta Press. Reach her at liz@theaugustapress.com
