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Conditions for Camiliers
Keith Butler2
Posts: 53
Hi,
Last year Monty Don showed how Camiliers would grow on a North facing wall, I now have 3 Camiliers but wont plant them because I realise I have alkaline soil, how can I get over this?
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Posts
They will each need a large pot and ericaceous compost or you could build a trough big enough to take all three. Make sure you position them so they don't get the early morning sun as they hate having frosts thawed quickly. It sends their flower buds brown.
You'll need to water them with rainwater as the alkalinity of tap water will stop them taking up nutrients from the planting medium. Give them regular drinks with occasional liquid feeds of sequestered iron - good DIY and garden shops - and make sure they do not go thirsty between late July and October as that's when their flower buds form for the spring show.
For more info on their care see this - https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=327
Hi,
Thanks for the reply, I can build boxes for them, what size do you think each one should be and could the box sit on the ground with an open bottom?
Chucked my white ones, for that very reason Verdun, soggy brown flowers! but the red ones are 10'x 10' so a big tub needed.
They don't suit this garden Verdun, i don't think they are cottagey? They love the acid soil, they just don't look right but are very dense and makes a good shelter for birds nests. Dad planted them years ago, so .....
You'll need good sized containers, Keith, a half barrel is the traditional way to grow them. I have a very small garden and grow mine in smaller tubs, but the big risk is if they dry out between July and October--then all the flower buds drop off. I have now had a Camellia in a tub for six years and each year it gets better and better. My recipe is:
1. East facing sheltered but bright (west facing even better)
2. Tub about 40cm x 40cm x 40cm. Their roots are shallow rather than deep.
3. John Innes ERICACEOUS compost, hard to find, essential to have a soil-based compost NOT peat-based--your garden centre will try and fob you off with it because it's easier to get peat-based. You may have to do what I do and mail order. Westlife do a JI ericaceous
4. regular watering in spring and time-release fertilizer granules suitable for acid-loving plants, plus:
5. a bucket a week of water with a fertilizer containing chelated iron and seaweed, between 1 Aug and 31 September.
Yes - a complete myth about camellias needing acid soil. Neutral is absolutely fine.
Have to be more careful with them in containers - drying out is probably the biggest issue. Strangely, it's in wetter areas that it's vital to be careful with watering, because it's easy to think the rain will do it, which of course, it won't. Using a soil based compost - not MPC - is also vital, as with any plant in a pot long term.
They grow like weeds up here, but the flowers often get such a battering from the weather just as they flower, that it's almost not worth growing them. I gave up on them for that reason. The pale flowered ones, in particular , look dreadful when the flowers get thrashed with wind and rain.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...