Other Names:  Japanese Camellia, Common Camellia

Description:

Lustrous gray-green foliage has pale yellow to white variegation; elegant peony-like blushed red-pink flowers with white highlights bloom in late winter to spring; has a slow, leggy, and open growth habit; provide rich, acidic, moist, well-drained soil

Ornamental Features

Benten-Kagura Camellia features showy scarlet round flowers with pink overtones and white spots at the ends of the branches from late winter to early spring. It has attractive buttery yellow-variegated dark green foliage with hints of grayish green. The glossy pointy leaves are highly ornamental and remain dark green throughout the winter.

Landscape Attributes

Benten-Kagura Camellia is a multi-stemmed evergreen shrub with an upright spreading habit of growth. Its average texture blends into the landscape, but can be balanced by one or two finer or coarser trees or shrubs for an effective composition.

This is a relatively low maintenance shrub, and should only be pruned after flowering to avoid removing any of the current season's flowers. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Benten-Kagura Camellia is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Mass Planting
• Hedges/Screening
• General Garden Use
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Benten-Kagura Camellia will grow to be about 10 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 7 feet. It tends to be a little leggy, with a typical clearance of 1 foot from the ground, and is suitable for planting under power lines. It grows at a slow rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for 40 years or more.

This shrub does best in partial shade to shade. It requires an evenly moist well-drained soil for optimal growth, but will die in standing water. It is particular about its soil conditions, with a strong preference for rich, acidic soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution, and will benefit from being planted in a relatively sheltered location. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone in both summer and winter to conserve soil moisture and protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America.

Benten-Kagura Camellia makes a fine choice for the outdoor landscape, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. Its large size and upright habit of growth lend it for use as a solitary accent, or in a composition surrounded by smaller plants around the base and those that spill over the edges. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when grown in a container, it may not perform exactly as indicated on the tag - this is to be expected. Also note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.