Spring's Promise Ice Angels® Camellia

Follow a regular watering schedule during the first growing season to establish a deep, extensive root system. Provide well drained soil, rich in organic matter. Feed with an acid fertilizer after bloom. Keep roots cool with a thick layer of mulch. Pruning time: spring after flowering.

Spring's Promise deserves front yard stature or position it at special points around your patio or terrace. Beautiful evergreen foliage makes a fine informal hedge, screen or dark background for bright blooming beds and borders. Brings glossy foliage and elegance into dull woodland settings under big old shade trees. Well adapted to the acidic soils beneath oaks, conifer and maples as well as mixed groves. Can be trained as an espalier to soften retaining and privacy walls.

With the cold hardiness zone dipping down to a Zone 6 for this plant, pair with other colder weather, woodland plants like Blue Holly, Fumewort, Rodgersia, Lenton Rose, Lily of the Valley, Snowberry and Beautyberry. Provide filtered sun with smaller canopy trees such as Cherry, Dogwood, Japanese Maple and Magnolia.

Camellias are native to eastern and southern Asia. C. japonica was imported into the Philippines but is native to China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The genus Camellia was named by Carolus Linnaeus who named it for a Jesuit missionary Georg Kamel, who cultivated an important garden of local medicinal plants on the Philippine Island of Luzon in the 17th century. Spring's Promise, a hybrid of Camellia japonica 'Berenice Boddy' and Camellia japonica 'Kumasaka', was the work of Camellia Forest Nursery of Chapel Hill, NC where they set out to develop a cold hardy cultivar that can be grown to 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Red camellias are a symbol of wealth and white Camellias signify loveliness. Camellias represent longevity and faithfulness and have long been a primary floral component in Asian weddings.