Camellias at Blackcreek Nursery

No Southern garden is truly complete without camellias. These magnificent evergreen shrubs have long been treasured for their beauty, elegance, and remarkable versatility. Perfectly suited to our warm Southern climate, they provide year-round structure and color when many other plants have gone dormant.

What Makes Camellias So Special?

While their glossy evergreen foliage is beautiful in every season, it’s the flowers that make camellias extraordinary. The genus offers an incredible diversity of bloom forms, sizes, colors, and flowering seasons. By carefully selecting different varieties, you can enjoy camellias blooming from early fall through spring—bringing vibrant color to the landscape during the quietest months of the gardening year.

Most camellias thrive in partial shade, making them ideal for woodland gardens and shaded landscapes. One notable exception is Camellia sasanqua, which tolerates—and often performs beautifully in—full sun, making it an excellent choice for brighter locations.

A Lifetime of Growing Camellias

We have been growing camellias for more than 35 years throughout our careers in the horticultural industry. During that time, we have not only cultivated thousands of camellias, but also developed and introduced many unique cultivars of our own.

Although we continue to grow beloved classics such as Pink Perfection and Professor Sargent, our true passion lies with preserving the rare, forgotten, and historically significant varieties that deserve a place in today’s gardens. Many of these exceptional camellias are no longer commonly found in the nursery trade, yet they remain outstanding landscape plants with stories worth preserving.

Before founding Blackcreek Nursery, we were co-owners of Gene’s Nursery in Savannah, Georgia—a nursery whose camellia heritage ran deep throughout the Coastal South. Many of the cultivars we continue to grow today were originally developed through Gene’s Nursery and Camelliashop, representing decades of breeding, selection, and preservation.

Today, our personal collection includes more than 500 camellia cultivars, and our goal is to make these remarkable plants available to gardeners who appreciate their beauty and history.

Building Again

When we transitioned from Gene’s Nursery to Blackcreek Nursery in 2020, propagation had to be temporarily placed on hold while we built our new nursery from the ground up. New propagation houses, growing areas, and infrastructure all had to come first.

Just as we were beginning to rebuild our collection, disaster struck. An unexpected snow and ice storm destroyed our large shade structure along with our new propagation area, taking many years of work—and many of our young camellias—with it.

That’s nursery life.

You take a deep breath, dust yourself off, and start again.

Now, in 2026, we’re finally returning to where we want to be. Fortunately, we were able to save many of our unique cultivars, and they are growing beautifully once again. To continue expanding our selection while our own propagation program grows, we also bring in carefully selected plants from trusted growers who share our commitment to quality.

Our long-term goal remains the same: to once again produce the majority of our camellias right here at Blackcreek Nursery, just as we did years ago.

More Than Ornamentals—We Also Grow Tea

One member of the camellia family surprises many visitors: Camellia sinensis.

Unlike its ornamental relatives, Camellia sinensis is the tea plant—the very plant from which green, black, white, oolong, and many other true teas are made. Every traditional tea enjoyed around the world begins with the leaves of this remarkable camellia.

At Blackcreek Nursery, we proudly grow Camellia sinensis in our half-acre tea garden, where visitors can see tea growing in a Southern landscape and learn how this fascinating plant fits into both the ornamental garden and the world of tea. While it lacks the large, showy blooms of many ornamental camellias, it produces delicate white flowers in autumn and offers attractive evergreen foliage year-round.

Growing both ornamental camellias and tea plants allows us to celebrate the incredible diversity of the Camellia genus. Whether you’re looking for spectacular winter blooms, rare heirloom cultivars, or the opportunity to grow your own tea, we hope you’ll discover just how remarkable this family of plants truly is.

We invite you to explore our collection and experience why camellias have remained one of the South’s most treasured garden plants for generations.

Debbie Odom