Practical camellia care from two decades in the garden
Helen Pritchard · July 15, 2026
Kitchen scraps alone won’t build the kind of camellia collection people photograph. I hear a version of this question constantly—usually phrased as “so you just toss coffee grounds and banana peels around and that’s it?”—from folks who’ve seen pictures of my 200-plus shrubs and assumed good intentions plus compost equals thriving plants. Truthfully, no. And … Read more
Helen Pritchard · July 15, 2026
Two hundred million years — give or take a few million — is roughly how long camellias have been sorting out which plants make good neighbors in the wild, long before any of us started drawing up companion-planting charts. And yet the internet keeps recycling the same handful of pairings: azaleas here, hydrangeas there, rinse … Read more
Helen Pritchard · July 7, 2026
Hi there! I’m Helen Pritchard, and I’ve been cultivating camellias in the beautiful Pacific Northwest for over two decades. With more than 200 named cultivars under my belt—ranging from sasanquas to japonicas, reticulatas, and hybrids—I’ve learned a thing or two about creating vibrant, healthy gardens. Friends and neighbors often stop by my patio, eyeing my … Read more
Helen Pritchard · June 9, 2026
Picture a torn plant tag in someone’s hand — that’s the image I keep coming back to from a spring garden show, where a woman stood at my table holding two labels, unable to decide between them. “Sasanqua or japonica — which one?” It’s a question I field constantly, and after two decades tending upward … Read more
Helen Pritchard · June 7, 2026
“What do I even put around a camellia once it’s planted?” a fellow gardener asked me at a plant swap a few years back, phone in hand, showing me a photo of her solitary Camellia × williamsii ‘Donation’ surrounded by nothing but mulch. Funnily enough, I’d asked myself the same thing not long before, staring … Read more
Helen Pritchard · June 4, 2026
Crouched beside a hulking six-foot shrub this morning, secateurs in hand, I keep staring at the little plastic tag still zip-tied to its trunk — it says “compact.” That single word has misled me more times than I care to admit over the past fifteen years of buying nursery-labeled camellias, only to watch them balloon … Read more
Helen Pritchard · June 2, 2026
Most camellias are odorless — full stop. That single fact catches nearly everyone off guard the first time they hear it, and I watched it land like a small deflating balloon at a winter garden society gathering last year when a member asked me point-blank which of my camellias smelled the best. Three dozen faces … Read more
Helen Pritchard · May 31, 2026
Fifteen years — that’s how long my ‘Donation’ camellia had occupied the same patch of ground before I decided to dig her up and march her clear across the garden. She’d grown into a sprawling four-foot beauty, smothered in crimson blooms, and by the time I made my decision, she was throwing so much shade … Read more
Helen Pritchard · May 28, 2026
Can a Zone 6 garden actually support camellias? Straight answer: absolutely, provided you’re picky about which ones you plant. This question lands in my inbox constantly, usually from someone who assumed camellias were reserved for milder climates further south. Most camellias, it’s true, evolved for gentler winters. Still, after twenty-plus years cultivating more than 200 … Read more
Helen Pritchard · May 26, 2026
Most camellia problems I’ve solved over two decades trace back to one invisible culprit: soil pH. You can have perfect drainage, consistent watering, and afternoon shade—yet your camellias still yellow, drop buds, and sulk. The leaves start looking anemic. Growth stalls mid-season. That’s usually pH talking, not bad luck. Camellias are finicky about acidity. They … Read more