Episode 10 Camellia

Camellia amplexicaulus pendulous form

Marion Whitehead is the Supervisor of Ornamental Gardens and Nursery at the Blue Mountain Botanical Gardens. Geraldine King is the Garden Manager at RHS Rosemore in Devon.

Below - the glamorous life of a Camellia grower!

A selection of beautiful Camellias from Marion at the Blue Mountain Botanical Garden.

Top left: Camellia ‘Kogane Nishiki’. Top Right: Camellia nitidissima,

Bottom left: C. reticulata “Ruta Hagmann’. Bottom Right: C. reticulata ‘Teresa Park’

A selection of Camellias from Geraldine who worked for 8 years at Chiswick house

Top left: Camellia japonica Bokuhan Top right : C. japonica Vergine do Collebeato

Bottom left: Camellias at Villa Anelli - Italy. Bottom right: Christmas Camellias!

How to Grow Camellias in the Northern and Southern hemisphere!

Can I grow them in a pot or do I have to grow them in the ground?

So in the UK you can grow them in pots because we're quite mild. And in fact, they do do really well in a pot. We are moving towards believe it or not, peat-free compost rapidly here. So in fact, the kind of peat-free alternatives are things with good wood mixes in them and they have survived rather well in that. So a mix of multipurpose with wood chip and bark and much more woody textured material will suffice for them. And then basically you can leave them in the pot for two or three years. Then take them out and we do something called root pruning. So basically you take a pen knife and you slit them vertically at one centimetre all the way around. Tease the little roots out and that kind of gives the upper part of the plant, a bit of a reaction into producing more flowers, then put it back into a bigger pot. And that will stop it becoming locked up where all of the roots are bound. But equally they grow very well in the ground.

Same in the Southern Hemisphere?

Same goes here. We have quite a big collection in our nursery at the moment in pots and a lot of them have been in there for quite a while waiting for this garden to be built for them to go in. But they definitely much prefer to be in the ground. You see them thrive as soon as they go in. So I think definitely if they're in a pot here, it's just a matter of making sure that you're feeding them enough, giving them enough water and potting them on at regular intervals so they don't become root bound and claustrophobic in their pots.

So I've got my Camellia. Does it want full sun, does it want shade or does this completely depend on which Camellia I've picked?

In like the European climate, you ideally want to give it semi shade. So it's quite happily under planted away from the roots of large trees, but quite happily grow like that. Northern Walls good. I wouldn't put it on a Southern, a South facing or West. I mean don't get me wrong actually in some of the larger gardens they are growing out in full sun but you'll find them might go a little bit chlorotic. (yellowing of leaves) If they do do that you just need to feed them with an iron feed.

Same goes in southern hemisphere so generally they can handle a lot of morning sun and then just not that sort of baking afternoon sun so most of the ones that we have at the gardens will go under an established canopy in our new garden. They're very, very hardy, so they can cop a lot of punishment.

Any tips for getting your Camellia to flower profusely?

Sometimes it's in the Camellia that you choose, so the cultivar or the species of it. Our Sasanqua that are flowering now in Australia, because it's late autumn here, are just absolutely prolific flowerers. So it's often in the cultivar or the species.

In the UK, I think one of the tips we tend to give people here is everybody goes away on holiday in August. And if you've got Japonica or Reticulata, well, that's when they're setting the buds. So you kind of need to give them water then, and people don't, and then they go, my plant isn’t flowering, and you're like, well, because you neglected it when it was setting its buds.

I think what's also really important is pruning. I've heard so many people go, well, I pruned it at Christmas. Well, of course you're not going to have any buds on it because you cut all them all off! So I think there are two key elements. You know, one is watering at the right time, the second one is pruning. And the secret to pruning a camellia is after it has flowered. Honestly, it does make me laugh when people say I've murdered my Camellia. I'm like, wow, they are not that hard. You know, they're a right tough little plant. You know, they really will take a lot of things that are thrown at them. That's why we've still got them 200 years later, you know, thriving.