Shrub · Theaceae
Camellia
Camellia japonica
Give it acidic soil, dappled shade, and steady water, and the camellia answers with full, showy blooms when little else flowers.
Partial shade
Every 5–10 days
USDA 7–9
6–13 ft · 1.8–4 m
Overview
A camellia opens its flowers at the cold edge of the year, when most shrubs stand bare. The common or Japanese camellia unfurls large, showy blooms from late winter into spring, while its sasanqua cousin sets smaller, finer flowers across fall and early winter. Holding all of it up are thick, leathery evergreen leaves with a hard, lacquered shine that catches the light year round.
The plant itself is a slow, long-lived woody shrub that thickens into a dense, branching frame over time. It builds to roughly 6 to 13 feet (1.8 to 4 m) tall across many unhurried years, laying on stem and leaf a little at a time. Rated for zones 7 to 9, it roots into acidic, well-drained soil and holds best in a sheltered pocket away from harsh sun and drying winter wind.
Up close, the foliage is the steady part of the picture: stiff, glossy, and deep green when the soil and light suit it. Read the leaves and they tell the whole story. In alkaline ground the blades pale to yellow with green veins still showing, and under hot afternoon sun the tight buds loosen and drop before a single petal shows.
Care
The short version: partial shade off the hot afternoon sun, acidic and well-drained soil rich in organic matter, and steady moisture through summer, with a light acid-forming feed in spring and pruning done right after the blooms fade.
Light
The glossy leaves color and flower best in partial shade, screened from hot afternoon sun. The plant accepts partial sun and even full shade, but morning light with afternoon cover gives the fullest blooms and keeps the leaf surfaces from scorching to brown.
Water
Keep the soil evenly moist but well drained, watering roughly every 5 to 10 days and more through summer heat. A dry spell while the buds are forming loosens them straight off the stem. Overhead watering beads on the petals and opens the door to petal blight, so it is left out.
Soil
Root it into acidic, well-drained ground rich in organic matter, ideally a pH of 5.5 to 6.5. Alkaline soil locks out iron and the leaf blades pale to yellow while the veins stay green, a clear sign read straight off the foliage.
Temperature
The shrub stands a wide range, from about 5°F to 95°F (-15°C to 35°C), across zones 7 to 9. Sharp swings or a hard freeze while the buds swell still cost the blooms, so a sheltered pocket protects them.
Humidity
Ordinary outdoor humidity suits a camellia, so there is no figure to chase. Air moving over the leaves matters more, since still, damp air films the surfaces and lets petal blight and leaf gall settle in.
Feeding
A light spring feeding of an acid-forming azalea or camellia fertilizer is plenty. Lay on too much and the leaf edges scorch brown and the foliage drops, so the leaves themselves mark the limit.
Pruning
Prune right after the blooms fade, and keep any hard cutting to the window from mid-February through May 1. Dead or weak stems come out whenever they show, and lifting infected and fallen blossoms keeps petal blight off the next round of flowers.
Repotting
A camellia grows slowly and lives long, so a potted one is moved on only every 2 to 3 years or once the roots crowd the pot. An acidic, well-drained mix suits it, and roots circling the rim or water sheeting straight through are the visible cues.
Size & spacing
A mature shrub fills out to 6 to 13 feet (1.8 to 4 m) tall and 5 to 10 feet (1.5 to 3 m) across over time. Set it with that room so air slips between the branches and the dense, leafy frame stays healthy.
When to plant
A camellia is a slow-growing evergreen that knits its frame over decades from a single planting. Set it in spring or fall into a sheltered, partly shaded pocket, and watch japonicas open from late winter into spring and sasanquas from fall into early winter.
Northern hemisphere
Southern hemisphere
Typical months for a temperate climate: start earlier in warm zones, later where spring frosts linger.
- Plant: Spring or fall in a sheltered, partially shaded site protected from hot afternoon sun and cold drying winter wind.
- Harvest: Camellia japonica blooms late winter to spring (about February-April); Camellia sasanqua blooms fall to early winter.
Hardiness
USDA hardiness zones: 7–9
Temperature: down to -18°C
Troubleshooting
Most of what goes wrong shows on the petals and the leaves themselves, and the fungal kinds carry through fallen debris. Look closely at color and texture, match the symptom below, then clear the ground beneath before it spreads. A careful cleanup does as much as any spray.
Brown spreading from the flower's heart, veins darkening
Brown creeps out from the heart of the flower while the petal veins darken into a fine netted tracery, and that signature marks petal blight, a fungus. Cold injury looks close but scorches inward from the petal rims and leaves the veins plain, so the eye goes to where the brown begins. Every stained and fallen bloom needs lifting and destroying, since the spores sit in the soil for years and carry a long way.
Fix:
- Hand-remove and destroy infected blooms and fallen blossoms promptly
- Rake up and remove fallen petals and debris under the plant
- Replace surface mulch with fresh pathogen-free organic mulch
- Apply a labeled fungicide during bloom as supplementary control
Yellow-blotched tops, undersides studded with scale
Turn a blotched leaf and the underside is studded with tea scale, oblong brown female specks and powdery white males pressed flat against the surface while the top mottles yellow. The crust thickens generation by generation, thinning the blooms and shedding leaves. A thorough film of horticultural oil over those undersides smothers them, and a systemic insecticide reaches a heavy crusting from within.
Fix:
- Apply horticultural oil to thoroughly coat leaf undersides, repeating as needed
- Use insecticidal soap during crawler emergence
- Apply a systemic soil insecticide such as dinotefuran in early spring or fall for heavy infestations
- Prune out and destroy heavily infested branches
Buds loosening and falling before they open
Tight buds form along the stems and then loosen and fall, or brown at the tips and stay shut, and the common root is uneven moisture, most often a plant that dried out through summer as the buds were forming. Temperature swings, freezes, poor drainage, and a nutrient shortfall can take the same toll. Steady water through the heat, a place where afternoon shade falls across the shrub, and cultivars timed to the local frost each hold the buds on.
Fix:
- Provide consistent soil moisture, especially during summer bud development
- Improve drainage and relocate plants from extreme exposures
- Correct nutrient imbalances based on a soil test
- Choose cultivars suited to the local frost timing
A soot-black film dulling leaves and stems
A dull, soot-black film dims the glossy leaves and stems, and that coating is sooty mold, settled on the sticky honeydew that scale and aphids leave behind. It clings to the surface alone and rubs away under a finger, never sinking into the leaf. Clear the insects dripping the honeydew and the film loses the sticky layer it grows on.
Fix:
- Control the underlying scale or aphid population producing honeydew
- Wash foliage to remove mold once the insect source is controlled
Bloated, fleshy shoots shading pale then brown
New spring shoots swell into thick, fleshy slabs that shade from light green toward white or pink, the mark of leaf gall and most often on the sasanqua types. Flip the bloated growth and a chalky white spore layer dusts the underside before the whole gall stiffens and browns. Snapping these off and destroying them ahead of that spore bloom keeps the next round from spreading.
Fix:
- Remove and destroy young galls before they produce spores
- Apply a labeled fungicide from budbreak through June at 7-14 day intervals for partial protection
Toxicity
For pet owners, the ornamental camellia is safe. The ASPCA lists the common camellia as non-toxic to cats, dogs, and horses, and neither the firm leaves nor the showy blooms hold anything that would poison other animals or people. As with any plant, the foliage isn't for eating in quantity, but a stray bite is no cause for alarm.
Safe for
People · Cats · Dogs · Horses · Rabbits · Livestock · Birds
Cats None
A cat that bites into one of the firm, glossy leaves meets no poison, since the ASPCA lists the common camellia as non-toxic to cats. Working through a real mouthful of leaf might bring a passing stomach upset, and nothing worse.
Dogs None
A dog can mouth the leathery foliage with no risk of poisoning. The most a large helping of leaf is likely to bring is some mild, short-lived tummy trouble.
Horses None
The thick leaves are non-toxic to horses, so a grazed mouthful is no cause for worry. There is no special handling to keep in mind around a paddock.
Rabbits None
Nothing in the firm green foliage makes a camellia a hazard to rabbits. A large amount of any rich leaf can loosen a small animal's gut, so it suits a nibble rather than a meal.
Livestock None
Cattle, goats, and sheep face no known poisoning risk from the leaves or blooms. As an ornamental shrub it is not meant for grazing, so it stays out of their feed.
Birds None
Backyard and pet birds can perch and pick at a flowering camellia in safety. A peck at a leaf or a petal carries nothing that would harm them.
People None
The shrub is grown for its showy blooms, not for eating, yet it poses no poisoning danger to people. Beyond the usual rule against chewing garden foliage, children need no special distance from it.
No special toxicity handling is needed; as with any plant, discourage pets and children from chewing ornamental foliage to avoid mild stomach upset.
Varieties
Camellias divide first into two species, set apart by bloom season and the scale of leaf and flower, then into named cultivars chosen for the shape and color of the blooms. These are the ones worth a close look.
Camellia japonica
The common or Japanese camellia carries large, glossy, leathery leaves and showy late-winter to spring blooms on a slow-building frame that wants shelter from hot afternoon sun.
Camellia sasanqua
The sasanqua is finer in scale, with smaller leaves and smaller flowers on faster growth, blooming from fall into early winter and taking more sun than the japonica.
Kramer's Supreme
A japonica cultivar bearing large, ruffled, deep red peony-form blooms that carry a fragrance.
White by the Gate
A japonica cultivar with crisp, formal double flowers of pure white, their petals laid in neat overlapping rows.
How to propagate
A camellia can be increased several ways, every one of them slow, since new roots and a fused union both take their time to form. The method that fits depends on whether the aim is an exact copy of a cultivar or rootstock and breeding work.
Stem cuttingsModerate
Take semi-hardwood cuttings of current-season growth in summer. · Several weeks to a few months to root; slow to establish overall.
In summer, cut firm, half-ripened lengths of this season's growth and stand them in a well-drained acidic medium, dipping the cut ends in rooting hormone to raise the odds. Roots break from the stem base over several weeks to a few months, and the young plant is slow to bulk up even once they show.
LayeringEasy
Spring through summer. · Several months to over a year for a layered branch to root.
The simplest method nicks the bark of a low, supple branch, pins it down into acidic soil, and leaves it joined to the parent while roots form at the wound. Worked any time from spring through summer, the buried length takes several months to over a year to root.
Air layeringModerate
Spring to summer on healthy stems. · Several months for roots to form before severing.
Air-layering handles the thicker, woodier stems too stiff to bend down, wrapping the wound up in the air so roots form there while the parent feeds it. Done on healthy stems in spring or summer, it needs several months for those roots to thicken before the new plant is cut free.
GraftingDemanding
Late winter to early spring. · Several months to establish a successful graft union.
Grafting is the most exacting method, binding a slip of a chosen cultivar onto vigorous rootstock until the two knit. Cut and joined in late winter to early spring, the union takes several months to fuse into one stem.
SeedModerate
Sow fresh seed in fall after harvest. · Slow; seedlings do not come true to the parent cultivar.
Sow the round, fresh seed in fall as it ripens, but the seedlings will not echo the parent cultivar. The path is slow and feeds breeding or rootstock work rather than copying a named variety leaf for leaf and bloom for bloom.
Myths
The showy garden camellia is the plant tea is made from.
Tea is brewed from the leaves of a separate species, Camellia sinensis. The garden shrubs are Camellia japonica and Camellia sasanqua, grown for their flowers rather than for any leaf to steep.
The camellia poisons cats and dogs that chew it.
The ASPCA lists the common camellia (Camellia japonica) as non-toxic to cats, dogs, and horses. A pet that bites a glossy leaf faces no poisoning, though a big mouthful of any foliage can bring a brief stomach upset.