True Gris is coming soon to a yard near you

I’ve never aspired to have my name on a fancy building or a street sign along a busy avenue.

My ego and bank account aren’t large enough to buy myself a stadium, with G-R-I-S in big, block letters. I don’t even have a boulevard budget. 

I probably could afford to write a check for an alley or make payments on a conference room. I guess I will have to die to have a park or a parkway named after me, and I’m not ready for that. Besides, there is a long list of folks far more deserving.

Once upon a time, I had a sandwich bearing my name at Molly’s Cafe downtown. Owner Betty Mock honored me when she renamed the “Monte Cristo” the “Monte Gristo.”

I was proud. I told folks about my yummy sandwich. When the restaurant closed, it made me sad to think I might be a one-bite wonder.

I made a comeback in the “name” game earlier this year. In January, I met with Matthew Israel at the headquarters for the American Camellia Society at Massee Lane Gardens south of Fort Valley.

Matthew is the executive director of the organization, which has more than 3,300 members. Although I have known Matthew for a long time, I had only recently learned he had a variety of camellia named after him. 

The “Matthew Israel’’ is a deep rose pink, reticulate hybrid. Congratulations were in order. I felt as if I were in the company of a king.

Then I popped the question.

“I once had a sandwich named after me,’’ I said. “What would it take to get a camellia?”

I was half-joking, but Matthew grinned. He could have been laughing at me, since he knows I come from a family of brown thumbs.

Although we have camellias and sasanquas in our backyard, we inherited them from the previous owners. We are more designated caregivers than propagators. We are trying not to let them die on our watch.

Eight weeks later, my wife and I found ourselves deep in the woods near Cairo, Georgia. We strolled through the gardens at Pat Johnson’s “Woodland Manor.’’ Camellias are the love of her life, and she has thousands of seedlings and hundreds of varieties growing on her property.

She is not a matchmaker. She does not hybridize her camellias. She lets God do the work.

“Pick out one,” she told me. She was a tiny bundle of energy. We could barely keep pace along the footpaths. 

There was pressure, too. I couldn’t tell many of them apart. They were all gorgeous.

“I want a red one,’’ I finally said. “Red has always been my favorite color.’’

After browsing through nature’s showroom, we discovered my special camellia under a canopy of pines. It was love at first sight. The species is Japonica, and its color is described as “dark, shiny, brilliant red with yellow anthers and light red filaments.’’

It was an established plant that first bloomed in 2010, so it had been waiting for me all this time, aging like fine wine.

After the paperwork was completed, Matthew submitted the registration on May 1, which would have been my late mother’s 97th birthday. She would have been a proud mom.

A panel of seven members from the cultivar registration committee made the selections. About 20-30 are chosen nationally each year.

Matthew shared the good news with me on May 8.

My camellia is named “True Gris” — coming soon to a yard near you.  

There are more than 30,000 varieties of camellias in the U.S. They are named after some famous people — like First Lady Rosalynn Carter — but mostly ordinary folks like me.

I was thrilled with the news. I wanted to wait and announce it to the wider world at the end of September. The timing was intentional, since next week marks the 80th anniversary of the American Camellia Society. It was founded on Sept. 29, 1945, at the Dempsey Hotel in Macon.

Willie Snow Ethridge, a newspaper feature writer and author of 16 books, attended the first public camellia show in the U.S. when it was held in Macon in February 1932.

“Camellias are not just flowers,’’ she wrote. “They are antiques. They have histories and legends and romances twined about them. They have genealogies.’’

I am humbled. It’s more about digging rights than bragging rights.

The next step will be for the staff at the American Camellia Society to grow and nurture “True Gris” seedlings in the greenhouses at Massee Lane. By next year, I will be able to plant them. I’m saving a spot in my yard.

In the meantime, Matthew has granted me full visitation rights at Massee Lane. I can go down there any time and whisper in the ears of my new horticultural family. 

Mostly, I want to say thank you.

Send Ed Grisamore a note at [email protected].