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
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
Last spring, I watched my prized ‘Nuccio’s Gem’ japonica sulk through an entire bloom season. The flowers were sparse, the leaves pale yellow-green, and no amount of fertilizer seemed to help. After years of growing camellias, I should have tested the soil first. When I finally did, the pH read 7.2 — far too alkaline … Read more
A few years ago, my neighbor put up the ugliest chain-link fence I have ever seen in my life. I am not exaggerating. It ran the full length of our shared property line — about 80 feet — and it rattled in the wind. That was the moment I decided to plant a camellia privacy … Read more
I still remember the moment I decided to try grafting camellias for the first time. I was staring at a leggy, root-knot-nematode-riddled Camellia japonica ‘Nuccio’s Gem’ that I desperately didn’t want to lose. The blooms on that plant were extraordinary — pure white, formal double, absolutely flawless. Losing it felt unthinkable. A fellow Master Gardener … Read more
A few springs ago, I nearly lost my only specimen of ‘Royalty’ — a stunning Camellia reticulata with blooms the size of saucers — to a particularly brutal ice storm. That close call pushed me to finally get serious about air layering camellias, something I’d been putting off for years. I’d always thought it seemed … Read more
A few summers ago, I nearly lost a cutting of ‘Nuccio’s Gem’ — one of my absolute favorite white japonicas — because I got impatient. I pulled it from the propagation box too early, convinced it had rooted, and snapped off every tiny root it had managed to grow. That single mistake set me back … Read more
My knees started sending serious complaints about three years ago. I grow camellias in Zone 8b, and pruning season means long stretches of kneeling on hard clay soil. Between my Kramer’s Supreme’ Japonicas along the back fence and the sprawling…
Last February, I stood in front of my oldest Kramer’s Supreme’ Japonica and felt genuinely embarrassed. Twenty-three years I have been growing camellias in my Zone 8b garden, and somehow I had let that poor shrub turn into a tangled,…
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…
