Camellias - because I love a challenge

When we started landscaping our postage stamp back yard almost 5 years ago when we moved into our town home, we splurged on one item - a Camellia.

A Camellia is a very beautiful flowering shrub. Ours has a showier flower that is more of a red, but you can get the idea from the picture below



Camellias are fussy plants that are very sensitive to salt in the soil, like specific soil and water conditions and are worth all the trouble because they are gorgeous! Plus, they bloom in the winter months down here, so there is a bit of color for a winter garden!

And it breaks my heart to leave it, but leave it I must.

So I decided to take cuttings of it to try take a part of it with us to our new home.

I knew that these were fussy little plants, but wondered how hard it could really be.

So I called the local nursery where I bought it, and they were not sure it could be done, but consulted a reference book, and said it could be done, but to ensure that I got one plant at the end of this, I should take numerous cuttings, and they provided the detailed instructions, which I dutifully wrote down.

When we went to get our supplies we again talked to the experts, and again they were very leery of my chances of success, warned me of this, but again provided detailed instructions, and then helped me select my supplies.

So Saturday night, all three of us played in the garden. We followed all the instructions:

1. Fill 6 inch pots with soil mixture
2. Take cuttings.
3. Remove all but top two leaves from cuttings.
4. Peal lower bark off
5. Dip cutting in water up to bark line
6. Dip wet cutting in rooting hormone mix (make sure little ones are not near this step, this stuff is poisonous! So clean up very well afterwards!)
7. Plant cutting without knocking the rooting hormone off.
8. Water with fertilizer
9. Place cuttings in spot outside where they will not get any direct sunlight, only indirect light.
10. Pray like crazy.
11. Water with fertilizer as needed to keep the soil moist. Do not let pots sit in water.

Even if a cutting takes, which I am praying at least one will, these plants are extremely slow growing, so it will be a couple years before I could take them out of the pots and plant them in the ground. But I am hopeful, and it will be very special to have this little memento from our first house that we bought together.