Say Hello to Spring!
There’s no better celebration of spring than camellias, a demanding yet beautiful flower. Slow Love author and former House & Garden editor Dominique Browning rediscovers the graceful flowers. VIEW HER GALLERY.
Courtesy of Dominique Browning
You cannot visit the South at this time of the year and avoid falling in love with camellias. I am crazy about them. I spend an embarrassing amount of wintertime online at the American Camellia Society Web site, where you can tune into what can only be called a beauty pageant of these glorious things. I fell in love with camellias in New Orleans, where my then-husband’s family lives. Thos. Lemann took me to see Longue Vue, a handsome house and garden designed in the late '30s by Ellen Biddle Shipman and William and Geoffrey Platt for the Stern family. I was a goner at the sight of those canopied branches bowing under the weight of peau de soie petals, each arrayed with what seemed like mathematical precision.
Click Image to Continue Reading & View Her Gallery of Camellia Photos
Dominique Browning's new book is Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas, & Found Happiness. She was the editor-in-chief of House & Garden and has worked with and written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, and O. She writes a monthly column for the Environmental Defense Fund and blogs at SlowLoveLife.com.