If your nice , tidy camellia bush has turned into a tree or is dropping its spent petals all over your driveway , it ’s prison term to get out the pruning tools and go to oeuvre . While you may desire to train your camelia to a Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree anatomy , youwant to do the training , not the other way around .
Camellias comprise hundreds of species , but the main case grown in home base gardens are Japanese camellia ( Camellia japonica ) and sasanqua camellia ( Camellia sasanqua ) , both hardy in USDA zones 7 to 9 , and their various hybrid . Pruning techniques are alike , but the timing depends on your camelia and when it flower .
Pruning Times for Japanese Camellia vs. Sasanqua Camellia
Regardless of the case , prune your camelia after it has bloom , or you will be snipping off all those operose - won efflorescence before you get to bask them .
Japanese camelia , which is native to Japan and China and the coinage you are most likely to see in nurseries in the U.S. , typically start to farm bud in mid - summer . These put on girth , then burst clear and flower some time between December and March , depend on the cultivar .
This means that your window to prune will be some time after its bloom until early summertime , although outpouring is best — because that ’s when the bush is most likely to recover from a large pruning .
Tip
Observe your camelia cautiously before sharpening your pruners , because if it has already create bud , you have missed your windowpane to prune for this year .
aboriginal to Japan , sasanqua camellia run to flower over a very retentive point , sometimes starting in belated summer and flower through November or even December . Although again , this motley reckon on the cultivar .
It will typically set bud six months before flowering , so that intend your pruning window is from about December to perhaps March . Observe it carefully , however , because if it has already budded , you have missed this year ’s window to prune .
Pruning an Old Camellia Bush
Annual pruning of a camellia bush that has not become completely overgrown entail turn off the stems back to just above the previous twelvemonth ’s increase . But if you are cover with a veritable camelia - gone - wild , you have a adult job in front of you .
Know the Shape You Want
Before starting , get laid where you require to finish :
This conclusion is really entirely up to you , because the camellia is a most obliging flora and can be trained to make an espalier , a George Herbert Walker Bush or a Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree in most typesetter’s case .
Get to Work
Plan to take out from one - third to one - one-half of your bush — ouch . But be ruthless because big , overgrown camellias have powerful root systems to fire their recovery . When the aboveground pruning is severe , the tooth root go into overdrive to ply the energy to regrow . Wherever you cut , you ’ll stop up with several new stems .
Here are the basics :
1 . point your trimmer and hygienise them as well to nullify unfold any potential diseases . penetrative gash minimize the possibility of disease as well . 2 . Remove any obvious crossing or deadened fore and offset . 3 . crop both orotund arm and smaller lateral stems almost flush to their feeder branch at a 45 ° angle toward the earth . Do n’t cutintothe parent prow , because you could damage it . You ’re aiming for maybe 1/4 inch by from the parent stalk at an slant that give up water to lean off rather than to sit , which could invite disease .
Tips for Transforming a Huge Camellia Into a Small Shrub
This is the most extreme scenario , and it entails a complete transformation of a very gravid , overgrown camellia into a small bush . If this is your camellia , go grab some longanimity , because you should spread out this kind of extreme pruning over a three - year menstruation , after blooming :
By the end of the third year , your camelia should have a solid , bushy form . Be cognisant , however , that during this three - year menstruum , your camellia will flower far less than you are used to , as it thrust all of its prodigious energy into leafage growth .
