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Christmas camellias add cheer to Sacramento gardens

How to keep these winter-blooming bushes happy in Camellia City

Red camellia blossom with gold center
Christmas camellias (Camellia sasanqua) brighten gray winter days. Pick some blossoms for indoor
display before the rains arrive later this week. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)





What would the holidays be in Sacramento without Christmas camellias?

In the Camellia City, these distinctive blooms add a cheery note to early winter days. Long-lasting as a cut flower, they look as good in a vase as they do on the bush.

Camellia sasanqua , a close cousin to the February-blooming Japonica camellias, blooms when weather conditions are just right, which is usually early December in Northern California.

Those first flowers can often appear much earlier in fall. This season, my Christmas camellias started blooming around Halloween. Dry and mild weather has kept them in flower ever since. Almost eight weeks later, the bushes are still covered with blooms – and living up to their nickname as Christmas camellias.

Dark red camellia blossom
Bees and hummingbirds love camellias, too.

Usually big red or dark pink flowers with distinctive gold centers, Christmas camellias also make excellent cut flowers. Put a stem of blooms in a tall vase or float individual blooms in a shallow bowl of water.

The most popular variety is the aptly named Yuletide with true red petals and a large gold center. Hybridization expanded the Christmas camellia palette to white and soft shades of pink as well as traditional Christmas red. Among those non-red Christmas camellias are Cleopatra (light rose-pink), Survivor (white) and Kanjiro (rose-pink). Peony-flowered Autumn Moon (white) and Autumn Spirit (pink) look very much like February-flowering Japonicas.

You may see examples at local nurseries. (And yes, camellias can be transplanted now.)

Christmas camellias have a reputation for hardiness. They’re tougher than Japonica varieties and can take more abuse. They can tolerate drought conditions and colder temperatures. Although they prefer filtered shade or dappled sunlight, Sasanqua camellias also can take more full sun than Japonica camellias.

Enjoy your Christmas blooms now. Once cold rain begins to pelt the flowers, they’ll start dropping off the bushes in bunches. Pick up and dispose of those fallen flowers to help prevent petal blight, a fungal disease that turns camellia petals prematurely brown. Otherwise, those spores will hang around and infect the Japonica camellias getting ready to flower in February.

As they finish flowering, prune Christmas camellias lightly to remove any dead wood or to gently shape. They don’t need much, but selective pruning can promote bushiness, upright growth and more bloom next winter.

Then, feed with an acid-type fertilizer formulated for camellias, which prefer slightly acid soils.
But don’t feed your Japonica camellias until after they finish blooming in early March. Feeding while camellias are in bloom (or about to bloom) may cause them to drop unopened buds.

April is the best time to shape Japonica camellias, after they’ve finished their bloom cycle. Like the Sasanqua, the Japonicas need little if any trimming. Both species grow very slowly – and for a very long time. Healthy camellias can live for several decades.

Which means you’ll have Christmas camellias for many holidays to come.

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Flowers in My Back Yard Series

Aug. 4: Dianthus a deceptively hardy flower

July 28: Naked Ladies put on summer show

July 21: Thank Luther Burbank for these long-lasting beauties (Shasta daisies)

July 14: How to keep hydrangeas happy

July 7: Grow these bright cosmos for bees and butterflies

June 30: Agapanthus adds blue fireworks to the garden

June 23: Easy-care gazanias fill those hot corners

June 16: Daylilies are perfect for water-wise gardens (and a lot more)

June 9: Grow coneflowers for pollinators -- and yourself

June 2: Sunflowers capture Sacramento's summer attitude

May 29: Are your roses going 'blind'?

May 26: Zinnias are the summer flowers every garden needs

May 19: Plant dahlias now for late-summer flower power

May 12: Know your coreopsis from your bidens

May 5: Mums the word on Mother's Day weekend

April 28: Majestic Matilija poppy is worth a look

April 21: Celebrate roses, America's favorite flower

April 14: Small flowers with outsized impact

April 7: Calendulas do double duty

April 3: Make Easter lilies last for years to come

March 31: In praise of a pollinator magnet (small-leaf salvias)

March 24: Azaleas brighten shady spots

March 17: The perfect flower for beginners? Try zonal geraniums

March 10: Keep camellias happy for years to come

March 3: Fruit tree blossoms are a fleeting joy

Feb. 27: Are your roses looking rusty?

Feb. 24: Treasure spring daffodils now and for years to come

Feb. 17: How and why to grow wildflowers

Feb. 10: Let's talk Valentine's Day roses

Feb. 3: Why grow flowers?

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Find our summer recipes here!

Garden checklist for week of Aug. 2

Get out early in the morning and monitor your garden’s moisture needs. Deep water and add temporary shade structures for plants that are feeling a little burned. In particular, protect developing peppers and eggplant.

* Put off fertilization until this heat passes; plants need to concentrate on hydration instead of growth.

* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplants to prompt plants to keep producing. Give your plants a deep watering twice a week, more if planted in containers.

* Watch out for caterpillars and hornworms in the vegetable garden. They can strip a plant bare in one day. Pick them off plants by hand in early morning or late afternoon.

* Mulch can be your garden’s best friend – it conserves moisture while blocking out weeds. But don’t let mulch mound around stalks, stems or trunks. That can promote rot.

* Pinch off dead flowers from perennials and annuals to lengthen their summer bloom.

* Pick up after your fruit trees. Clean up debris and dropped fruit; this cuts down on insects and prevents the spread of brown rot.

* Prepare for a fall full of flowers by paying a little extra attention to your garden. Cut off spent blooms from roses, annuals and perennials. Roses will rebloom about six to eight weeks after deadheading.

* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.

* In the garden, direct seed beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and turnips. Make sure to keep seeds and seedlings consistently moist.

* Plant potatoes.

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Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Strawberries

Find our spring recipes here!

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Muffins and pumpkin

Find our fall recipes here!

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Lemon coconut pancakes

Find our winter recipes here!

Food in My Back Yard (FIMBY) Series

Lessons learned during a year of edible gardening

WINTER

Is edible gardening possible indoors?

Hints for choosing tomato seeds

Starting in seed starting

Why winter is the perfect time to plant fruit trees

When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants

How to squeeze more food into less space

Potatoes from the garden

Plant a fruit tree now -- for later

Win the weed war by tackling them in winter

Tips for planting bare-root trees, shrubs and vegetables

Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space

Ways to win the fight against weeds

FALL

Dec. 16: Add asparagus to your edible garden

Dec. 9: Soggy soil and what to do about it

Dec. 2: Plant artichokes now; enjoy for years to come

Nov. 25: It's late November, and your peach tree needs spraying

Nov. 18: What to do with all those fallen leaves?

Nov. 11: Prepare now for colder weather in the edible garden

Nov. 4: Plant a pea patch for you and your garden

Oct. 27: As citrus season begins, advice for backyard growers

Oct. 20: Change is in the autumn air 

Oct. 13: We don't talk (enough) about beets

Oct. 6: Fava beans do double duty

Sept. 30: Seeds or transplants for cool-season veggies?

Sept. 23: How to prolong the fall tomato harvest 

SUMMER

Sept. 16: Time to shut it down? 

Sept. 9: How to get the most out of your pumpkin patch

Sept. 2: Summer-to-fall transition time for evaluation, planning

Aug. 26: To pick or not to pick those tomatoes?

Aug. 19: Put worms to work for you

Aug. 12: Grow food while saving water

Aug. 5: Enhance your food with edible flowers

July 29: Why won't my tomatoes turn red?

July 22: A squash plant has mosaic virus, and it's not pretty

July 15: Does this plant need water?

July 8: Tear out that sad plant or baby it? Midsummer decisions

July 1: How to grow summer salad greens

June 24:  Weird stuff that's perfectly normal

SPRING

June 17: Help pollinators help your garden

June 10: Battling early-season tomato pests

June 3: Make your own compost

May 27: Where are the bees when you need them?

May 20: How to help tomatoes thrive on hot days

May 13: Your plants can tell you more than any calendar can

May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success

April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?

April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)

April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers

April 8: When to plant summer vegetables

April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths

March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth