Camellia Japonica Plant
Camellia japonica, popularly known as Japanese camellia, is a very distinguished ornamental houseplant, that you need to welcome at least one specimen into your collection! It is an evergreen shrub that typically grows to 6-12’ tall on stems clad with oval, leathery, glossy, dark green leaves (3-4” long) with finely serrated margins. It blooms in early spring when not much else is blooming adding colour to what might otherwise be considered a dreary landscape. Bloom colour ranges from white to all shades of pink or red with yellow anthers. Every single flower has 5-8 petals. The flower size is quite variable ranging from 2-5 inches.
In mild winter climates, it is an outstanding flowering shrub for lawns, shrub borders, backgrounds, informal hedges, and around houses. Camellias are mainly used as conservatory plants when grown outside of their prescribed hardiness range, and they thrive in this climate. Since they respond poorly to change (e.g., losing their buds), taking them outside in the summer and then back inside in the fall is generally not suggested.
Camellias should be grown in a brightly lit area that can accommodate their wide-spreading habit and kept cool in the fall and winter to induce flowering, if at all possible.
