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Truman Parkway Camellia Rescue
Last Updated: 06/12/2010
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Camellias in the path of Truman Parkway expansion moved to Liberty County
For nearly a year, Mary Beth Evans, Executive Director of the LeConte-Woodmanston Foundation of Midway, Georgia in Liberty County, had been in discussion with the Chatham County Department of Engineering regarding a collection of old camellias at Holland Drive and White Bluff Road in Savannah. The camellias were located on the old Katherine Constantine estate, directly in the path of the Truman Parkway.
Camellias have a long history at the LeConte-Woodmanston Plantation southwest of Riceboro. The first shipment of camellias to America were said to be three “Alba Plenas,” two of which arrived at the gardens of Louis LeConte. Dr. James Stokes in a report for The American Camellia Society in 1949 stated: “The central theme of these notes on Georgia Camelliana has been the old Double White (Alba Plena) Camellia of Woodmanston, and activities related to the Louis LeConte botanical garden.” A century earlier the Rt. Reverend Stephen Elliott spoke before the Southern Central Agricultural Society in 1851: “…especially in the grounds of the late Mr. LeConte of Liberty County, there are seasons of the year when one literally walks upon camellias and their seed is freely matured in the open air.”
Woodmanston is also believed to be the site of the first botanical garden in Georgia. George D. Lowe, botanist and horticultural writer for the Savannah Morning News wrote in 1936: “Undoubtedly, the LeConte garden in Liberty County near the head of the South Newport River was a proving ground for plants that are now disseminated all over the south. All the LeContes were scientists and horticulturists.”
Evans and the Foundation were intent on rescuing the Holland Drive camellias, so when the call came in late April of this year, they lined up the equipment and volunteers to move the camellias.
“We were lucky in finding Fred Peters in Bluffton (SC). He was brought to our attention as someone else who had remembered these camellias from years ago and had the tree spade needed for the relocation operation” says Evans.
Four 16-foot trailers were loaned to the Foundation and thirty-two camellias, some over 20-feet tall, were dug, put in “ball & burlap,” transported 40 miles, and planted in a prepared “camellia forest” at the plantation. Over the next several days, they were “washed in” leaving no air pockets in the soil, pruned and fertilized.
“Camellias do not like being disturbed. Fred gave us explicit instructions on how to best secure their survival.” Evans continues, “If we had the time, we would have been propagating all last year, air-layering and taking cuttings, but another one of our rescue projects is 90 miles in the opposite direction and our volunteers have been spread pretty thin.”
LeConte-Woodmanston is on the American Camellia Trail and has plans of establishing the “Georgia Collection” of over 550 registered Georgia cultivars. It was this effort to locate these camellias that brought the Holland Drive and other camellia collections to the Foundations attention.
 
For information, contact:
Mary Beth Evans, Executive Director
LeConte-Woodmanston Foundation, Inc.
P.O. Box 179
Midway, GA 31320
(o) 912-884-6500
(c) 912-658-4691
mbevans@leconte-woodmanston.org
website: www.leconte-woodmanston.org
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