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CO-EDITORS: LIONEL WORTHY and SANDRA WILLIAMS

Those of us who were able to attend the society's October meeting really had a treat. The Gordys - Clarence and Lillian - presented a fascinating program on camellia blooms; their care, preparation, and transportation. It was in good time for all of us who expect to enter blooms in the January show. We will be more successful as show winners as the result! I'm not forgetting too that we are having a mock show at the November 19th meeting, so "pay off" comes soon.

Recently I over-heard some conversations concerning new varieties. It was interesting for we seem to be always asking questions about the newest varieties - where can we get them? Is there a blue? One with fifty rabbit ears? One so tiny you can hardly see it? A new Chanel # essence? Longer staying power? Opens in June? I get excited about new varieties just the same as you (like Dr. Howard Smith's CRAZY SUE)!! On the other hand, how many of you have realized that our GCS has a constitutional commitment to promote and emphasize early camellia varieties in this area? I just became aware of that fact when I read the constitution of the GCS. It certainly has not been stressed in the past. Now I really feel that the work going on at the Stephen Foster State Folk Cultural Center is right in line with one of our society's basic purposes. Our contact person with the Stephen Foster Camellia Garden is Annabelle Leitner, one of our GCS members. She has been working for over a year to gather the oldest varieties in this country for the garden and is still looking! Can you help?

There is another way that you can perhaps assist our society and that is by making a donation toward the expenses of the upcoming camellia show at Oaks Mall in January. Those of you who heard Dr. Jerry Hogsette's show report at the October meeting know how very much more expensive this show will be than in the past. Every little bit will help and if possible should be in the hands of the treasurer, Susan Mikolaitis, by our November 19th meeting. The mock show, a great learning experience, is at 2:00 p.m. at the Millhopper Branch Library.

I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

Dr. Mikolaitis maintains and updates our "page" by adding the current GCS NEWS BULLETIN and by continually improving the graphical layout. He has received E-mail from Europe wanting more information on camellias after seeing GCS on the Web.

The web page of the International Camellia Society, located on the Island of Jersey in The Channel Islands, cross references the GCS web page and color gallery. So does the web page on camellias of the University of Delaware.

November 11-12: Ft Walton Beach, FL, Westwood Retirement Community, and Ft Valley, GA, Massee Lane Gardens; November 15-16: Waycross, GA, Trust Company Bank of SE Georgia; November 18-19: Valdosta, GA, Valdosta Garden Center, and Biloxi, MS, Holiday Inn Express; November 25: Brookhaven, MS, State Bank and Trust Co; December 2: Albany, GA, Albany Mall, and Jacksonville, FL, Swain Memorial Methodist Church; December 2-3: Jacksonville Beach, FL, Womens Club; December 3: Slidel, LA, Slidel Municipal Auditorium.

Gibbing: Continue to gib a few buds every week to have a continuous supply of flowers during the fall. Do not gib small plants having less than 10 to 15 buds (after disbudding) because wherever gib is applied there will be no new growth in the spring, even if the blooms are not cut. For plants having only 10 to 15 buds, apply gib to no more than one third of the buds.

Watering: When bloom buds begin to swell, either naturally or after the application of gibberellic acid, water is essential for maximum flower size. Dry plants produce smaller blooms than well-watered plants, all other things being equal. Keep in mind that applying lots of water allows for deeper penetration of water into the soil. This promotes the growth of deeper roots in soil that does not dry out as quickly as surface soil. Applying small amounts of water promotes shallow root growth in soil that is close to the surface. Surface soil dries first and so do the shallow roots.

Pruning: As buds begin to open and camellia blooms once again fill our lives with color, there is a tendency to cut all of the flowers and bring them inside. And why not! Well, for one thing, where ever a bloom is cut, unless a developed growth bud is left behind, there will be no new growth on that branch the following spring. For small plants, this is critical because new growth is essential for larger plants and, of course, more flowers. As flowers open, keep the idea of pruning in mind when decisions are being made about which blooms to cut and which blooms not be cut. Some blooms may be on a branch that definitely needs to be trimmed out of the plant. So, when the bloom is cut, remove the branch as well. If a bloom is on a branch that should continue to grow longer next year, that bloom should not be cut.

Krysia Janes, GCS; Sidney Marshall, GCS; David Mikolaitis, GCS; Sallie Sehl, GCS; Cecil Simmons, GCS; Fred Stone, GCS; John Thrasher, GCS; Sandra Williams, GCS; Lionel Worthy, GCS; Harold Goforth, Ocala, FL; Alan Grant, Altamont Springs, FL; Mike Lanita, Ocala, FL; Bob Reese, Jacksonville, FL; Gail Reese, Jacksonville, FL; John Shirah, Lakeland, FL; and Jason Stevens, Lakeland, FL. Sallie Sehl and Cecil Simmons elected not to take the test.

John Thrasher thanked Lionel Worthy for the great newsletter he did. Lionel said that it can only be as good as the articles people contribute.

Howard Smith said sixteen people attended the Judging School. They had five or six speakers. Everyone seemed very pleased. The whole thing cost $289 to put on and we took in $249; therefore, it cost the society $40 additional money which is a small price for good will and publicity. One cost item was that we had to put one of the judges up over night. Also a $25 honorariam was paid to each of three of the judges. Susan Mikolaitis said that the fact that we could find a free meeting room helped tremendously in keeping down the costs.

John Thrasher asked how many people would be interested in ordering the ACS's Camellia Nomenclature Supplement. It was decided that Susan Mikolaitis should order six supplements for our members to purchase.

Bruce Cavey said that the Plant Shoppe is going to give a 20% discount to Camellia Society Members on camellia purchases.

Regarding the January Camellia Show, Jerry Hogsette said it would cost $850 to have 50 tables delivered, set up with skirting, taken down and returned. He said the breakdown was approximately $6.50 per table and $5.50 for the skirts. If someone could find a cheaper source for the skirts, it would be a great way in which to reduce costs. It is going to cost $80 for them to take the tables away. Jerry has contacted the mall to see if there is anything they can do to help us reduce these costs. Anyone with any ideas, please contact Jerry Hogsette. Jerry said the Amphitheater will be finished the end of the month. He also said that there is a water source outside Dillards and another one outside the Orient Express.

The Ocala Camellia Society is going to have their show on January 13 and 14.

If anyone needs to call Sandra Williams at work, her new phone number is 955-6708.

John Thrasher asked if anyone was interested in ordering from Nuccio's to please give him the list, because he is hoping to send in the order this month.

Jack Janes said that he went to Kanapaha Gardens to see the Camellia and Azalea walk. He said it needs a lot of work. He thought some trees needed to be removed in order for the plants to get more light. Cecil Simmons said that sometimes by removing lower branches of trees, this would enable more light to reach the plants. Jack thought that most of the trees were small and should be thinned out.

It was also brought out that the trees need to have the lower limbs removed at the North Florida Regional Hospital Camellia Garden so these plants could get more light.

Alan Shapiro asked that some people get together to cut down some trees at Kanapaha Gardens and remove some of the camellias that didn't make it and plant some new varieties. Anyone interested in doing this, please contact Alan Shapiro.

David Mikolaitis brought in several plants again this month. One was given to a guest and the other two were auctioned off. The proceeds of the auction are to go into the General Fund.

Alan Shapiro said that if we were going to have a Fall Garden Tour, we need to think about it now. Howard Matheny said that they could get a list of people who would be interested in having their gardens open for a tour. It's important to get new gardens on the tour. If anybody wants to volunteer their garden for a tour, please contact Howard Matheny.

James Norman made a suggestion that society members try to graft one or two new varieties to be auctioned off at the May Barbecue. He even said that he was willing to help people with the scions. This is a great way to add to our General Fund and also it will give members a chance to get camellias that they don't already have and can't find in the local nurseries.

Clarence and Lillian Gordy of Ocala gave an excellent presentation of grooming and transporting camellias for showing. Hopefully some more members were inspired to take the plunge and enter some blooms this year.

The "pictures" (actually the zeroes and ones that are the digital representations of the images) are stored on a computer on David Mikolaitis' desk at the University of Florida. He scanned the color slides on a Nikon film scanner (courtesy of Prof. John Abbitt and Dr. Pat Abbitt) and used a combination of Adobe Photoshop, L-View and Microsoft Paintbrush to get the images into their current format.

Eventually we hope to have about one thousand different pictures of bloom available over the Internet. In addition, We will take pictures of the prize winning blooms at our Show in January and have an on-line Show Report complete with full color pictures.

The gallery of Camellia blooms can be accessed from a link off our Alachua Freenet page at http://www.afn.org/~camellia/ or accessed directly at http://grumpy.aero.ufl/camellia/gallery.htm. For those of you that are "power users" the gallery of blooms is enhanced for Netscape 2.0. When the gallery is viewed with a Netscape 2.0 browser a list of camellia blooms appears in a column along the left side of the computer screen. When a bloom name is selected it's picture appears in a target window or "frame" to the right of the list. When a new variety is selected it's picture is loaded into the target window. This feature gives a nicer interface in that you don't have to use repeatedly the "back" button and reload the list of blooms; it's list is now always visible. Of course everything works in the usual way when the page is viewed with a "regular" web browser. The latest beta version of Netscape 2.0 is available for downloading from Netscape and many other FTP sites.

As a fairly new member to our Society, I am like a sponge that wants to absorb as much knowledge about camellias that I can. Unfortunately, there never seems to be enough time at our meetings to get all the wealth of information that our older members have to share with the newer members.

A thought occurred to me after talking with James Norman at the last meeting about an experience that he had when he grafted a reticulata onto a sasanqua root stock. It grew all right, but it just never flowered. So he decided to pull it up. When he did, he found that there was an extremely small root system. He has come to the conclusion that we shouldn't graft retics onto sasanqua rootstock because of the nature of the sasanqua's roots. It is experience like this that should be shared with our members.

I found this and many other things that I have heard members talking about after the meetings to be very interesting and exciting. Unfortunately, a lot of other members, especially new members don't hear these helpful tidbits of information. The thought came to me that I would like to compile a booklet using the wealth of knowledge our members have gotten over the years working with camellias. I would appreciate getting any and all information that you have regarding camellias. Even if you don't think it is important, please submit it. For those members in our society that would find it difficult to compile and write up this information, I would love to get together with you so you can describe what you have learned over the years and I can take down notes. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised that some of the newer members have things to share about their experiences with camellias too. Please don't be afraid to share your thoughts and ideas. Please be thinking of a title for this booklet.

Another idea that I would love our society to do is to start a video library. Maybe someone with a cam recorder could take pictures while someone demonstrates on how to do the procedure; example, grafting on various sizes of camellia root stock. Another thing that I would like to see demonstrated is something that Fred Stone was telling us about. It's an alternative to the usual way of grafting. A scion is grafted into the side of an existing plant without lopping off the whole top of the plant. If the scion takes, you then cut off the rest of the plant and if it doesn't take, you still haven't lost your original plant. There are so many things that we forget that by having a tape that we could look at just before we actually proceed in trying the procedure ourselves, it would be extremely helpful. A possible way we could finance this is through auctioning plants off at our meetings. Eventually I will have root stock available to those who need it for their grafts which will eventually be auctioned off. James Norman has also made this offer. I also hope to learn the art of grafting so I, too, can contribute plants to be auctioned off. Another way we could increase our General Fund is for our own members to grow plants that could be sold at the Show in January; this way the plant would be clear profit. I have volunteered to grow approximately 100 (+/-) plants from cuttings that can be sold at the show; however, there are a couple of problems with this. First off, it takes approximately three years before a plant is ready to be sold. Also I only have a couple of large camellia plants; therefore, I will need to get cuttings from hopefully some of you members who have huge camellias that need to be trimmed. Please let me know if you have any plants that you would allow me to take cuttings from. It would be nice if I could get a good mixture of cuttings.

Talk about grafting, I had a disastrous year. I had never done it before and I lost every one of my grafts (100). I was so heart broken that if I hadn't to being secretary this year, I probably would have dropped out of the society. Thank God that other much more experienced members of our society told of their disastrous year too. Then I don't feel so badly. Just by sharing this experience with other members has brought me closer to our group. I wonder how many other new members have had similar negative experiences and have dropped out.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Fred Stone is now looking for a start of the following Japonicas: GYOKKO - (Light of Morning Sun) - Blackish Red. Large, single. L. (Japan). WHITE GOLD - White with Golden line. Medium, anemone form. M - L. (U.S. 1959 - Baker). MAI-ZURU - (Flying Crane) - Greenish White. Large, single. See Higo. VERSCHAFFELTIANA - Bright Pink striped White. Large, formal double. (Belgium - 1849 Verschaffelt). This can be in the form of either a scion, cutting, potted grafted plant or a potted airlayered plant. Please call him at (904) 336-0110.

Allen and Sallie Sehl at (904) 528-5266 plan to have castor bean seed at the November meeting for anyone interested. They were unable to make the October meeting.

Leonard and Diane Fisher are looking for a start of DIANNA LENNARD, a Hybrid With Other Than Reticulata Parentage - Deep Pink shaded to light Pink. Medium, formal double. Average, open, upright growth. M - L. (Seedling of Hybrid 'Elegant Beauty') (N.Z. 1982 - T. Lennard, Te Puke).

Sandra Williams is interested in getting scions of any miniature. She has a few and would like to have more. If you have scions you will share of miniatures, please call her at (904) 372-3116.

I wandered through the nursery and found many camellia plants. There are large plants in the ground throughout the nursery which are used for stock.

The Sheffields have a good selection of varieties. They have several Tomorrow varieties and several Elegans varieties. Many of their varieties are the older varieties such as Herme, Professor Sargent, Mrs. Lyman Clark, French Imperator. They have added some stock from the Hardisons' collection in Tallahassee, therefore they have some of the Gilley varieties.

The one japonica which was in bloom was the Pink Perfection. They have a large number of Pink Perfections. Some swirled quite nicely.

I have bought plants from them and have been very pleased with the quality of plant and bloom.

I also visited Home Depot to check out their camellia supply. They had about fifty plants. The manager showed me the list of varieties they have available from their supplier. They will continue to have these same varieties throughout the season.

They have several sasanquas including Cotton Candy and Shishi Gashira. Their list of japonicas is limited but includes Katherine Nuccio, Kramer's Supreme, Rose Dawn, Victory White, Quercifolia and a few other standard varieties.

Again, let me caution you. If you have limited space, be careful to get varieties that have different characteristics so you don't end up with five varieties that all look alike. If you are not sure what the different varieties look like, take your Nomenclature with you so you won't be disappointed when they bloom. Our local nurseries have good selections, visit them and make your choices. All have assured me that their stock will be refreshed as the season progresses. Let's all support our local nurseries and buy as much of our stock from them as possible.

Now let's not forget the armies of spider mites that are doing their part to damage camellia leaves and cause them to turn rust-colored along their mid-ribs. But spider mite populations do not usually kill camellia plants, even though it might appear that the plants are on their last legs. Damaged flower buds, on the other hand, do not produced undamaged flowers! How long we have waited through the hot, dry summer for that first camellia flower to open, and how frustrating it is when some back-yard beastie ruins that bud just as it is beginning to show some color!

Who are the main culprits in this conspiracy to limit your fall flower production? One large group is the katydids and tree crickets. But the katydids are the real sentinels of the camellia forest because they perch atop the plants at night and call to one another. Their sounds are similar to those produced by running your fingers down the teeth of a comb. This is because the sound producing system used by the katydid is very similar in design. The speed with which the strumming sounds are produced is dependent upon the air temperature. The warmer the air, the faster the sound is produced, and vice versa.

So what is the problem with this beautifully colored insect sitting on top of the camellias producing its soothing song of the night? Well for one thing, when katydids take a break from their song-producing activities, they like to munch on nearby flower buds! Katydids usually chew through the protective outer green sepals and into the tips of the unfurled petals. Some buds are attacked from the side and a portion of the petal mass is removed, exposing undeveloped parts of the flower. Buds thus damaged should be removed from the plant.

Bud damage is quite obvious and easy to spot during the day. But most of the time no bud- chomping bugs are nearby when you discover the damage. This is unfortunate because after seeing your buds destroyed, it is quite easy to think of interesting and unusual ways to dispatch these pests. Usually the bugs have filled up on the tasty petals and moved on to other locations, hopefully in your neighbor's yard.

It is difficult to catch these insects in the act, but your chances are increased significantly if you search during the twilight and evening hours. A good rechargeable flashlight is indispensable for this type of work. Rechargeable flashlights let you inspect your plants after dark when much insect activity occurs. Besides alerting the neighbors to your presence in the yard after dark, rechargeable flashlights also confirm their worst fears: that the long days in the sun sniffing fertilizer and pesticide fumes are finally beginning to have irreversible effects on your mental faculties. But who cares what the neighbors think when the fate of your camellia buds are at stake?!?

Tree crickets, most of which are much smaller than katydids and are brown to light green in color, add to the problems caused by katydids. They too like the tasty camellia buds. But why all of this clandestine nighttime activity during the fall months? The beasties know, probably by the decreasing day lengths and changing temperatures, that winter is coming. It is their last chance to stock up on whatever food is available. Some will 'hibernate' as adults during the winter and will rely on stored body fat for their nutrition. Others will die after laying their eggs, but they need the proper food to produce the eggs. Nevertheless, it is a race for survival between the creatures and the climate. The camellias just happen to be innocent bystanders in this annual event, because they are one of the few plants that have succulent tissues at a time when most plants are also closing shop for the winter.

What can be done for katydid and cricket problems? Katydids spend most if not all of their time on plants and many times they can be seen and killed on the spot during the day. Look for these pests towards the tops of your plants (even the tops of the short plants) during warm to cool weather and on lower parts of the plants if temperatures turn cooler. Most crickets are nocturnal and can be found anywhere on the plants. The black to brown 'Jiminy' crickets probably play little or no part in the bud damage because they stay mostly on the ground.

If katydid and cricket damage is significant, orthene (acephate) can be applied to plants in problem spots according to label instructions. Because many crickets spend their daytime hours on the ground, treatment with granular cricket baits can be effective in areas of high cricket density. The best and most effective control we can really hope for is a spell of weather cold enough to cause the beasties to either lay their eggs and die, or go into hibernation! After this occurs, the camellia buds will be free from attack for the remainder of the season.

Dr. Carlsette: I don't know. I guess it must be that good clean gibbin'!

Mr. Adolphe Auditor asks: What do you call it when someone at a show tries to hide petal blemishes by painting over them?

Dr. Carlsette: A crude move to groom a doomed bloom!

Mr. & Mrs. C. M. Gordy, 7188 NW 14th Street, Ocala, FL 34482

Mr. Harold W. Goforth, 2114 SE 14th Lane, Ocala, FL 32670

Honorary member as of 11/1/95: George Xavier Mikolaitis

Mrs. James E. Norman (June) has joined. Her address is currently given under Mr. James E. Norman.

Other updates to make include the daytime telephone numbers for Sandra and Laddie Williams. Sandra may be reached at (904) 955-6708 and Laddie at (904) 955- 6701.

Fred Stone reports a new mailing address: 4711 NW 16th Place Gainesville, FL 32605.

A past president of the Gainesville Camellia Society, Mrs. Mary Sarver, has rejoined GCS after a 1 year absence. We welcome these new and old members!

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