Camellia Garden at the Dothan Area Botanical Garden Gains Recognition

 Camellia Garden at the Dothan Area Botanical Garden Gains Recognition

By Sharman Burson Ramsey, President of the Southeast Alabama Camellia Society

 

The Gulf Coast Camellia Society held its 60^th conference in Mobile on October 21 and 22, 2022. The Mobile Botanical Gardens and Bellingrath Gardens hosted the events. The Rock Stars of the Camellia world made presentations. Dothan’s own Forrest Latta served as Master of Ceremonies.

 

Maarten van der Giessen spoke on Mobile’s Great Camellia Nurserymen: Sawed, Rubel, Kimono, Dodd, Bellingrath, Drinkard, Bower and Jarvis. Bobby Green introduced New Breakthroughs in Hybridization. Kip McConnell, filling in for Mark Crawford (suffering with Covid) educated the group on the ACS/Gao Plant Trials Report (a combination of azalea and camellia?). Then a panel consisting of Bobby Green, Seth Allen, Robin Kirchak, and Vaughan Drinkard spoke on the development of the K. Sawed Wintergreen.

 

Vaughan Drinkard informed us about how the K.Sawada Wintergarden came to be. It took the leadership of Bobby Green, Vaughan Drinkard, Rhan Vander Giessen and others to develop the Sawada Wintergarden as an homage to K. Sawada. It is the goal of these camellia societies to preserve the historic camellias, to present them to the public to appreciate, and to propagate even more beautiful camellias. 

 

Dothan’s own Mark Cannon was spoken of with near worship. He was a true leader in the Gulf Coast Camellia Society and in the camellia world of Dothan, Alabama. Seeing the Sawada Wintergreen garden inspires one to fulfill the dream of the founders of the camellia garden at the Dothan Area Botanical Garden to develop our camellia garden to be as lovely as the one in Mobile. And it is possible. 

 

The Gulf Coast Camellia Society has placed the Dothan Area Botanical Garden’s Camellia Garden on the Camellia Garden Tour. That is quite an honor and one not to be taken lightly. We hope to honor those who came before by setting aside a special area in the camellia garden for Dothan. Leaders in the Camellia world and propagation were Dothan gardeners: Marilyn Latta, Marion Grant Hall, Mark Cannon, Paul Angeloff, Bill and Linda Nicholls, and Max McKinny. I am sure there are others that I have missed and would appreciate that information as well as the donation of those camellias for our Dothan area garden from family members. 

 

According to Max McKinney, also an early member of the Southeast Alabama Camellia Society, our club was founded around 1956 by Dr. Ralph Moon, Bill Nichols, Jim Brown, and Marion Hall. McKinney (who has a garden of about 700 camellias) joined the club a couple of years after the founding. He recalls Mark Cannon being an early propagator as well as nursery owner. The nursery was named after his wife Marjorie, and his two daughters, Dorothy (Dot Cannon Culver) and Char (Charlotte Cannon Blount). MA-DOT-CHA HOBBY NURSERY was located at 300 Montezuma Avenue. Dr. Skeeter Mazyck had a yard full of beautiful camellias he propagated and was an early member of the club. We are hopeful some have been preserved since a bank has now been built where his home once sat.

 

The Southeast Alabama Camellia Society meets the first Tuesday of every month at 3 PM at the Dothan Area Botanical Garden. We are members of the Gulf Coast Camellia Society which is a member of the American Camellia Society which is also a member of the International Camellia Society that hosts biennial trips to different countries around the world. This year’s trip will be to Italy. All are welcome to join each of these organizations.