How to Grow Camellia Houseplants

The Camellia is a houseplant for the person with a green thumb, or at least a yellow one. Keeping the Camellia alive indoors requires work and the proper environment. If you're able to follow the growing guidelines, the Camellia can prosper indoors as a beautiful, flowering bushy plant.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Maintain a temperature no warmer than 68 degrees F during the day and even cooler at night. Growing a Camellia is a difficult task in most homes.

2. Keep your Camellia in a cool basement or three season porch during the winter months. In the summer, plant the Camellia in a shady outdoor flower garden.

3. Grow your own tea plant. The Camellia leaves can be seeped for tea. Outdoor plants tend to thrive better, but indoor plants if kept in a cool environment can produce adequate tea leaves.

4. Use soil with a high acid level. Plant your Camellia in a large pot. It should drain well and include some peat moss.

5. Water regularly during spring and summer. Keep the soil moist at all times. Slow down watering during winter.

6. Spray the leaves of your Camellia daily either with a spray bottle or hose if outdoors.

Tips & Warnings

• If cared for properly, the Camellia is known to live for hundreds of years.
• Have patience. Adequate tea leaves take at least three years to develop well on the Camellia plant.
• Prune the Camellia to form a bush or tree shape by cutting back vegetation after the blooming season, usually in late fall or early winter.