'Kate Sheppard' camellias in a vase of 'September Snow' rhododendron flowers
Today is Women's Suffrage Day. It's 118 years since New Zealand women won the right to vote in national elections – the first women in the world to gain this right. The floral emblem of the New Zealand suffrage movement is the white camellia. September is peak camellia time and white camellias were the choice of the suffragists who went to Parliament to give a floral thank you to the MPs who voted for female suffrage.
'Kate Sheppard' close up
One hundred years later a white camellia bush was bred especially for the Suffrage Centennial (can anyone tell me who bred it?), and named Kate Sheppard after the Christchurch feminist who was a prominent leader of the suffrage movement. I bought a 'Kate Sheppard' camellia bush in 1993, planted it first in my Diamond Harbour garden, and then moved it to Port Levy in 2002. She didn't seem to mind the move. She starts blooming in early September, and is in full flush by Suffrage Day.
Rhododendron 'September Snow' and a white spiraea bush in the Eco Garden
Another white flower bred in New Zealand which is out right now is Rhododendron `September Snow'. According to a curator at the Dunedin Botanic Gardens it was bred by a local garden enthusiast, Bruce Campbell, who crossed R. leucaspis with R. edgeworthii. It is an attractive small bush, and the flowers have a delicious nutmeg scent.
Both in the garden and in the vase, these are gorgeous flowers from shapely shrubs, and well worth a place in the Kiwi spring garden.
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