Every February, I walk through my Zone 8a garden with my morning coffee, and the camellias are usually putting on their best show. Last winter, though, I stopped dead in front of my ‘Debutante’ — a pale blush japonica I’ve grown for fifteen years. Her blooms had turned a muddy, sickly brown seemingly overnight. Not … Read more
A few years back, I nearly lost one of my most treasured plants — a gorgeous Camellia japonica ‘Adolphe Audusson’ that had been growing in my Zone 8a garden for over a decade. The leaves had turned a sickly, yellowish-grey on top, and the undersides looked like someone had dusted them with dirty white chalk. … Read more
Every spring, I walk my garden after the last japonicas have finished blooming, and I face the same question I get asked more than almost any other: should I be deadheading camellias? It sounds simple. Pull off the dead flowers, keep things tidy, move on. However, after twenty-plus years and a collection that now runs … Read more
Monthly Camellia Care Calendar: What to Do Every Month of the Year After decades of growing camellias in my garden, I’ve learned that success comes from understanding what your plants need at each stage of their annual cycle. Rather than treating camellia care as a vague year-round task, I’ve found it enormously helpful to follow … Read more
Every spring, I get some version of the same message from a fellow camellia grower: “Helen, I pruned my camellias and now they won’t bloom. What did I do wrong?” Knowing when to prune camellias is honestly one of the most critical pieces of camellia knowledge you can have — and it’s one of the … Read more
I killed a ‘Nuccio’s Gem’ once. Not through neglect, not through frost, but through water — or more precisely, through watering it the exact same way in July as I did in February. It sat in my Zone 8a garden looking increasingly sorry for itself all summer, leaves yellowing at the edges, new growth limp … Read more
Every spring, I get the same email from frustrated gardeners. Their camellia is lush, green, and absolutely thriving — except for one glaring problem. No flowers. Not a single bloom. If you are dealing with a camellia not blooming, I want you to know something important: this is almost always fixable. After twenty years of … Read more
Every spring, I walk my garden and feel that familiar mix of excitement and mild guilt. The camellias are pushing out fresh growth, and I know it’s time to fertilize. For years, I fumbled through this — overfeeding here, forgetting entirely there — until my ‘Debutante’ japonicas started throwing chlorotic yellow leaves and my prized … Read more
I was standing at the RHS Garden Show last spring when a gardener approached my display table with the question I hear at least once a month: “Which camellia should I buy—sasanqua or japonica?” She held two plant labels, clearly torn between them, and I smiled. After twenty years growing over two hundred named camellia … Read more
Three years ago, I redesigned a bed around my beloved Camellia × williamsii ‘Donation’. It had become a lonely specimen, gorgeous in February but surrounded by bare earth and the wrong neighbours. I realised then that camellia companion plants weren’t a luxury—they were the difference between a specimen shrub and a garden that sings for … Read more
