Camellia bush troubles 🌺

Camellia's often do this it’s their natural look. You can prune them to a more open structure immediately after flowering. They make their next years buds on this years growth.
It is important to feed them with Ericaceous feed or top dressing compost.
As the next years buds develop you will see them, quite small, as the summer progresses. It is also important to make sure they are well watered with rain water, if grown in a planter.

Mine should have been pruned last year but wasn't.
It didn't get its top dressing last year either. It is in the ground.

The buds are just starting to appear yet I thought they normally flowered in January. Every year they seem later.

We inherited a lovely mature camellia when we moved into this house, and although I have fed it, the foliage always looks sickly though the flowers are fine and now showing colour. I don’t know enough about pruning to have a good go at it and am thinking about cutting it down after its flowered this year.

The moronic 'gardener' at our flats neatly pruned all the flower buds off our Camellia last autumn and is puzzled at its poor show so far this year!!!

Greyduster

We inherited a lovely mature camellia when we moved into this house, and although I have fed it, the foliage always looks sickly though the flowers are fine and now showing colour. I don’t know enough about pruning to have a good go at it and am thinking about cutting it down after its flowered this year.

Just take out a third of any stems that look sparse, crossing with another or too tall. They are quite tough shrubs and grow in the mountains of Nepal.

Greyduster, do you water your camellia with rainwater or tap water? Just asking, because tap water can be quite alkaline and camellia likes acidic conditions, so rainwater is preferable.

If the leaves are looking yellowish, it is probably in need of a feed, it might be lacking nitrogen, but look for one suitable for acid loving plants.

I gave mine a light prune last year after flowering, cutting branches off at the bottom part of the plant. It shouldn’t have too hard a prune though, because the buds form on this years growth.

They need a good water during the summer as the buds are developing at this time.

I hope this will help your plant so that you don’t have to remove it.

Like you, we inherited ours and it has taken it a long time to reach a reasonable height and produce more buds, but this last year or so, it has taken off.

I believe they can even be cloud pruned, but I haven’t tried that with mine.

Sankev, I think your camellia will be fine. I’m looking at mine now and some of the buds are hidden by foliage, but I’m sure that as they open further, they will be more visible.

Mine's looking very healthy, perhaps with all the rain we've had but usually, when the flowers open, they last a day and then go brown.

Mine is in a large pot, although partially under the door canopy it still gets some sun. Beautiful green leaves but no buds yet.
Where am I going wrong?

Camellia flowers are best kept out of the morning sun, so the shade provided by leaves is protecting the flowers.
Allira maybe yours gets morning sun on the flowers? It’s ok once the dew has dried off but they don’t like sun when they are damp.

Mine is fine here on neutral soil but our one in London needed yearly feed of dried blood (bought in packets from the garden centre!) to keep its leaves healthy.
For a while it was the only non- vegetarian in the household!

Yes, I think it could be the sun, Lucy as it faces south.

Years ago it was in a pot, started looking sickly so it was then transferred to a garden bed and it's too large and old to move now.

We brought ours from our house when we moved, 20 years ago. Its grown into a beautiful bush full of buds but it’s taken a lot of years to get this way.
We tend to ignore it but do water it through the summer.

MT62

Mine is in a large pot, although partially under the door canopy it still gets some sun. Beautiful green leaves but no buds yet.
Where am I going wrong?

Lots of rainwater in the summer months produces the buds, plus ericaceous feed.

Thanks J52. Plant is in acid soil, fed with a feed specifically for acid loving plants, watered with tap water.
Could it be the water? Sun hits in the morning as well. My car usually shelters it.
I did buy it in Lidl & not a garden place
My DMs is the same as mine but hers has flowers already.
Should I move it perhaps?

A couple of easy ways to acidify the water. Top the soil around the plant with pine cuttings, or drop a dissolving vitamin C tablet into the watering can before using. You can buy a whole tube from supermarkets cheaply.
Works really well for all acid loving plants including Blueberries.

Thanks Smintie
The Vitamin C is a good tip.

Camellias are tough things. They must be to survive me!

This one is about 20 years old and has been flowering for a couple of weeks, the photo was just after it began to flower. It’s about 5’ tall and has been in the same wooden barrel the whole time. It came to our current address 13 years ago in the back of our son’s car. It’s impossible to top up the soil, the barrel is too full of roots. We give it plenty of water, an ericaceous feed mid summer and some dilute Epsom salts when the flowers fade. Dark brown marks appear on some leaves every year, I just pull those leaves off.

It was pruned hard before we moved otherwise it wouldn't have fitted in the car, now I take a little off immediately after flowering to keep it small enough for the space it’s in. No idea if that’s the right thing to do! I suspect it thrives on benign neglect.

I read this title as Camilla, disappointed to actually read it!

My camellia had one flower in January and that was it. It’s in a pot of ericaceous compost out of the morning sun. Yours sounds good so I wouldn’t worry. Do remember to keep it watered during the summer, cold tea is good as it is acidic, so that it forms flower buds for next year.

Mine showed its first flower in early February,it had about twenty blooms when a severe frost turned them brown.Its now recovered and is full of flowers.Four years ago we pruned it to a large lollipop shape.
It isn't fed and only watered if the weather is really dry.I live in Lancashire where we had very little rain in February.

I have bought some ericacious liquid feed (I need it for my heather beds also), so I shall see if it improves things. I have given it camellia food in the past but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Wish me luck!

Good luck greyduster

“ Could it be the water? Sun hits in the morning as well”

Morning sun is not recommended for Camellias, if they have dew on the flowers the morning sun can scorch the petals ( acts as a prism) and the flowers go brown and fall off.

Mine is in a large pot against a fence. It has plenty of buds but so far the only flowers are at the back, against the fence where I can’t see them. Only discovered them because I had to move the pot this morning.

I think that my mother planted six pathetic specimens in her garden some 30 years ago
They are incredible and have formed massive shrubs.
I don't think that it's due to any special gardening skills-the soil and climate is perfect for them .
They were neglected and overgrown when I first took over her garden .
I hard prune them after flowering in March
I water them with used tea bags in water if dry .
One of them of them had a sticky black blight which I washed off with Epsom salts in water.
I'm wondering about doing some cuttings .
A couple of them have flowers which are half hidden by leaves - which I don't worry about - I presume it's the habit of the hybrid .