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…
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….
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…
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…
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…
