The Pacific Camellia Society kicks off its 2017 series of meetings with speaker Tom Nuccio of Nuccio’s Nursery 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 2, at Descanso Gardens.

In addition to being a humorous, enthusiastic speaker, Nuccio brings a vast array of beautiful blossoming camellia plants to talk about at the meeting. Many of the camellia plants are donated to the society for raffling off to the audience at the end of the meeting. Nuccio will be available to answer questions about growing camellias.