Sasanqua Camellia Camellia sasanqua Jennifer Susan

Jennifer Susan carries soft pink, informal double flowers with slightly ruffled petals through autumn and into the cooler months, and the petals shatter and fall cleanly rather than browning on the bush. What separates it from the other sasanquas here is the wood. The frame is softer and more arching, fine stemmed with small glossy leaves, where the others are stiffly upright. That flexibility makes it the espalier and pot plant of the group, and a hedge that reads soft rather than architectural.

Arching wood and what it is for

The arching growth is either the reason to buy this plant or the reason to buy a different one. Tied down along wires it lies flat and stays flat, without the constant heading back an upright cultivar needs on a wall. In a large pot it spills over the rim instead of standing stiffly above it, which is the difference between a container that looks planted and one that looks potted. As a hedge it makes a rounded face, never a hard edge, so it suits a boundary you want softened and not a formal line. It grows through temperate and subtropical districts from coastal suburbs to the tablelands, in part shade with morning sun and afternoon protection, in acid soil kept moist and freely draining under a generous mulch, on moderate steady water. Set hedge plants about 750mm apart, or roughly 1.5 metres along espalier wires.

Dry westerly wind is the limit

The fine wood and the softer leaf are also the weakness, and the specific weakness is exposure. Hot dry westerly wind crisps the leaf margins on the windward side and browns the buds before they open, and because the wind arrives from one direction the damage does too. A run along an unprotected western boundary ends up full and green on the sheltered face and thin and brown on the other, and no amount of watering evens it up, because the injury is desiccation of the growing tips, not drought at the root. Give it a fence, a building or an established tree line on the hot side before you plant, or put a firmer cultivar on that aspect and keep this one for the sheltered runs. The same wind dries a container from the top down, so move pots off exposed corners in summer.

Against the upright pinks

Plantation Pink is the upright single pink and the one that will take an exposed boundary. Rose Ann sits in a similar pink range on a firmer, more compact frame that holds its own shape without training. Jennifer Susan is the one to take when the plant has to bend to the job: laid on a wall, spilling over a pot rim, or softening a hard edge in a courtyard. It is grown here through the full run of grades including semi advanced stock, so a trained espalier or screen can go in as a finished piece rather than being built up over years.

Tie in rather than cut back

Most of the work on this cultivar is tying, not cutting. Once flowering finishes, choose the new arching shoots you want, bring them down towards the horizontal while they are still soft enough to bend, and tie them off with something that will not cut into the bark. Shorten the rest to a couple of leaves. Growth that is bent down flowers along its length; growth left standing upright runs away and flowers at the tip. Anything you do cut has to happen in that same post flowering window, because a trim in December takes the buds for the following autumn with it. A camellia and azalea product twice a year is enough, and on this one it is worth going lightly, since soft sappy growth pushed by heavy feeding is exactly the growth that burns in dry wind. Pots take the same at half strength onto damp mix, with the surface refreshed every couple of years.

Choosing a size

This plant is available in 10 sizes, from 200mm up to 150L, priced from $38.95 to $1199.00 per plant. The size shown is the pot the plant arrives in, which is the rootball, not the height of the plant. The smaller pots hold younger plants that cost less each and establish quickly, which suits hedges, screens and mass planting where the plant count adds up. The larger sizes carry several more years of growth on the farm and give height and presence straight away, which is what you want for a single feature position or a screen that cannot wait. Not sure which to choose? Read our guide to camellia hedges and winter flowers.