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Sabrina Hahn: How to grow camellias, from camellia sasanqua to camellia japonica

Sabrina Hahn The West Australian
Camellia japonica
Camera IconCamellia japonica Credit: Sabrina Hahn

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There is no doubt that camellias are up there with one of the most popular garden plants over many decades.

Most gardeners know of camellia sasanqua and camellia japonica, but few people would know there are more than 700 species of camellia that grow. Most of them distributed throughout Southern China.

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If you are a tea drinker, chances are you are drinking the leaves from camellia sinensis. I believe I contribute to a large workforce picking in a plantation to keep up with my daily cuppa consumption.

I know that most gardeners around WA grow sasanquas because they are deemed as being sun-tolerant, but in my experience japonica is hardier once established. I have seen 60-year-old japonicas in old farmhouses that have received no water or fertiliser for years — and look magnificent.

Japonica grow into a much larger bush and certainly need a shady position. If you are looking for smaller camellias you could try bonsai, they look stunning.

If you’re wondering if you should prune camellias, yes, we prune everything. Pruning allows us to train the shrub into a manageable height that is open to the air and light. Remove growth that touches the ground, weak spindly stems and any branches crossing into the middle of the bush.

You can lightly prune any time of the year, but the main annual heavier prune is done immediately after flowering before the spring growth appears. Disbudding is part of the pruning task. Do not disbud until bud drop has occurred naturally, it saves you time. Many camellias set five to seven bud clusters which results in poor flowering. Leave only two buds to a cluster so that the flowers can open fully.

Camellias do exceptionally well in a large pot filled with good quality potting mix and compost. If you are growing them directly into the ground, get lots of bags of compost and cow manure. Camellias prefer a more acidic soil than our coastal sands so apply sulphur pellets to alkaline soil to drop the pH of the soil.

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