Practical camellia care from two decades in the garden
Helen Pritchard · April 5, 2026
There’s a wooden potting bench tucked against the fence line on the east side of my property, and most Novembers you’ll find me hunched over it, thumbnail working into a fat, leathery seedpod I’ve just pulled from my Camellia japonica ‘Adolphe Audusson’. Three dark seeds rolled into my palm the last time I did this, … Read more
Helen Pritchard · April 3, 2026
Clay soil will kill your camellias if you plant into it blind. That’s not scare tactics — it’s what nearly happened to my ‘Professor Charles S. Sargent,’ a deep crimson double japonica I’d chased down for years before finally planting it, only to watch it languish in a soggy bed for two miserable seasons. Eventually … Read more
Helen Pritchard · April 1, 2026
There’s a photograph in my garden files I keep meaning to delete but never do: a close-up of soil beneath my ‘Nuccio’s Jewel’ japonica, taken last April when I knelt down to grab a fistful of the ground cover there. It’s loose, dark, almost cocoa-colored underneath, and it smells like a forest floor after rain. … Read more