Practical camellia care from two decades in the garden
Helen Pritchard · January 31, 2026
After twenty-plus years of growing camellias in my Zone 7b garden, I thought I had my fertilizing routine figured out. Then came back-to-back seasons of yellowing leaves, sparse blooms, and one particularly sulky Camellia japonica Nuccio’s Gem’ that refused to…
Helen Pritchard · January 28, 2026
Transplanting camellias has always made me nervous. After more than two decades of growing them here in Zone 8b, I’ve learned that even a healthy plant can sulk for a full season after being moved. Last spring, I had to…
Helen Pritchard · January 26, 2026
Last February, I watched helplessly as a hard freeze crept in overnight and torched the open blooms on my Professor Charles S. Sargent’ Japonica. The flowers had been absolutely perfect — deep crimson, fully double, just days from their peak….
Helen Pritchard · January 24, 2026
My camellia hedge has been the pride of my backyard for nearly two decades. However, somewhere around year fifteen, it stopped being manageable and started being a problem. What began as a tidy row of Camellia japonica Kramer’s Supreme’ had…
Helen Pritchard · January 21, 2026
Last November, I walked out to check on my camellias and noticed something that made my stomach drop. A white, waxy crust had built up along the stems of my oldest Japonica — Kramer’s Supreme,’ a plant I’ve been nurturing…
Helen Pritchard · January 19, 2026
Last spring, I hit a wall I hadn’t expected after two decades of growing camellias. My raised beds — which I’d built specifically for acid-loving plants — started showing signs of pH drift. Leaves on my Kanjiro’ Sasanqua turned a…
Helen Pritchard · January 16, 2026
In the spring of my ninth year growing camellias, I walked out to my largest bed and found three established plants sitting in standing water that had been there for at least four days. Two of them were Survivor’ japonicas…
Helen Pritchard · January 14, 2026
When I planted my first camellia back in 2003, I had no idea what I was doing. I bought a generic, unlabeled plant from a big-box nursery, stuck it in full sun with clay soil, and watched it slowly sulk…
Helen Pritchard · January 12, 2026
I still remember the spring I lost a twelve-year-old Survivor’ camellia to what I can only describe as fertilizer enthusiasm. It was my fourth season growing camellias seriously, and I pushed nitrogen too early, right before a late frost snapped…
Helen Pritchard · January 9, 2026
Three springs ago, I stood in front of a Survivor’ camellia I had planted seven years earlier and felt genuinely defeated. The leaves had gone from that deep, waxy green I love to a sickly yellow-green with darker veins running…