Those pretty plants you see blooming now in your neighbor’s yard are sasanquas. Sasanquas are one of the most useful and versatile plants that anyone can ever have in their home landscape. Sasanquas have rich, dark green foliage and will grow about 8- to 10-feet tall.
They are excellent to use at the corners and offsets of houses for foundation plantings, and they are great to use along property lines for hedges. One real advantage that sasanquas have is that they will do equally well in sun or shade.
Sasanquas can be planted en masse for screening or they can be planted individually to serve as specimens. They easily lend themselves to being pruned into tree forms, or they can be trained for espaliers for a brick wall or wood fence.
Sasanquas are readily accepted by the most high falutin’ gardeners (people who use terms like en masse). They hold their own in the most elegant of settings, yet they have great appeal for the common man. If you have a Volkswagen garden but want a Cadillac plant, use a sasanqua.
Sasanqua blooms in red, pink or white colors. “Apple blossom” sasanqua has a pink bud that opens to a white flower in the middle with a deep pink edge. Combined with the yellow pistil in the center, “Apple blossom” creates a very attractive look.
“Cleopatra” is perhaps the most popular of the sasanquas. It is one of the fastest growing. It has pink flowers and readily lends itself to specimen, tree form or espalier forms. “Cleopatra” sasanqua has been a mainstay of southern gardens for decades.
“Yuletide” is the most popular red sasanqua. It blooms late in the season (at yuletide) and also has a very attractive yellow pistil when it is in flower. Yuletide is relatively slow growing. “Midnight Lover” is a faster growing red sasanqua but, as the name implies, the requirements for owning this plant may eliminate some of you from eligibility.
There is some confusion about the difference between sasanquas and camellias. The common names of these plants are the source of this confusion. Perhaps a brief discussion of the botanical names can help to clarify the situation.