How to Prune Camellia

The best time to prune camellias is usually right after they bloom.

There's nothing quite as surprising as the winter camellia bloom, a sudden blaze of color that brightens dark days. These elegant evergreen shrubs, as enduring and rugged as they are beautiful, require very little care beyond their need for well-drained, moist soil and sun and wind protection. Camellias normally need minimal pruning. A conscientious beginning gardener can handle the task. The primary goal is to create a healthier shrub, which means removing dead wood, thinning inside limbs for improved air circulation and shaping plants.

Things You'll Need

• Pruning handsaw
• Garden loppers
• Bypass hand pruners
• Garden gloves
• Safety goggles
• Camellia fertilizer

Instructions

Minor Pruning

1. Prune camellias immediately after they finish blooming, before new growth begins and next year's flower and vegetation buds form. Remove all spent flowers--especially flowers that turned brown from petal blight--and thoroughly clean up all flowers, twigs and limbs from the ground to prevent disease. Remove branches or stems with leaves that are dead or damaged by sun or frost.

2. Remove any dead or spindly, weak branches. Remove drooping or crossing interior branches. Remove two or three additional inside branches, if the interior still seems overcrowded with leaves, to allow sunlight and air to penetrate. Cut limbs flush to the trunk or feeder branches, leaving no nubs to serve as disease hosts.

3. Make a camellia bushier by cutting some branches and stems back to the recent growth scar, or the point where the plant stopped growing during the previous year. Make the pruning cut 1/2 inch beyond the scar; buds below that point, near the scar, will emerge and grow into several new stems. Do not cut a stem or branch in the middle of a year's growth, which will stimulate only one stem to grow--no improvement.

Major Pruning

1. Severely prune a camellia that has been so neglected that it's become infested with scale or other persistent pests. Remove all infested wood and vegetation, pruning the entire shrub by as much as 50 percent if necessary. A reinvigorated plant--supported by a large, well-established root system--will produce vigorous new branches, foliage and flowers. It will also more successfully resist pests and disease.

2. Cut back a camellia more severely also if it has outgrown available garden space. Carol Savonen, of Oregon State University, suggests doing this over the course of three years. Cut off lower limbs the first spring--stimulating new growth from the trunk--but leave the top one-third of the shrub intact. Cut off the crown to the preferred height the following spring. Expect a renewed shrub and blooms the next year.

3. Convert a huge old camellia into a tree, alternatively--a renovation project that can be done in one year. Cut off all lower branches, making all cuts flush, to create the tree "trunk" up to the desired height. Cut out dead, diseased, spindly or crossing limbs from the remaining upper foliage. Fertilize monthly during the growing season to stimulate vigorous new growth.

Tips & Warnings

• Use very sharp tools when pruning camellias, sharpening implements if needed. Sharp pruning cuts heal faster, which discourages disease.

• Immediately after pruning, stimulate healthy new growth by feeding camellias with camellia food or fertilizer formulated for acid-loving shrubs and trees.

• Some gardeners apply pruning sealant or paint to cut surfaces after pruning, but according to the American Camellia Society, this practice is not necessary.

References

• Oregon State University Extension: Camellias - Prune after spring bloom
• Alabama Cooperative Extension: The Culture of Camellias, the State Flower of Alabama
• American Camellia Society: Pruning Camellias