Do camellias like coffee grounds?

I don't know, but I can tell you that plants really like nitrogen.

In fact, plants are the only consumers of nitrate on this planet and they love it. Think about it. The roots of your coffee bush get a steady flow of minerals and plant food via the nutrient-rich coffee grounds. The leaves of your tree get a constant supply of nitrogen by harvesting the nitrogen from the air and converting it into a useable form of nitrogen for the leaves. Coffee grounds, of course, come in the handy form of ground-up old coffee.

Nitrogen is one of those micronutrients that is actually pretty hard to find in the soil. There's plenty in the air but when it's converted into something useful, it has to come out of the ground somehow. And unless you're growing plants, you don't have to deal with the challenge of mining it out of the ground.

As a result, we generally over-apply nitrogen fertilizer and end up with nitrogen burn. We've been doing it for so long we've just become used to the fact that we over-apply it. As a result, we've got nitrogen burn in our soil!

Nitrogen burn is the condition where the amount of available nitrogen in the soil has been reduced by more than 50%. It's actually almost impossible to go above 50% because that's when soil becomes acidic. We call acid soils as bad as it can get. They're not. But they're not great either. The most important point is that you don't have to have an acidic soil to have nitrogen burn.

I've seen the problem on farms where large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer are applied and you get a farm with nitrogen burn. You'll notice it because the plants will be stunted. They won't grow in a straight line. Instead, they'll bunch up and spread out. They'll seem to be growing but all they're doing is absorbing some nitrogen and then dropping down. That's what it looks like.

Nitrogen burns aren't common because of two simple facts. First, the plants have to want to absorb more nitrogen so when you see one of these situations, look for a solution that makes the plants more likely to absorb nitrogen.

Do camellias like direct sun?

We put some in a light garden which gets direct sun most of the day.

The plants grew very well, but we're having to water them more often because they don't like the windy conditions.

We have some ferns in front of the house and they didn't like the sun. Most of the ferns died this summer (as did their friends in the shade garden). They like to be on the windy side of the house.

My husband grew a variety of things in our city garden that he had no choice but to get sun - it was quite harsh to a few of his seeds though - he only got tomatoes and peppers out of those. We have a few daffodils and I've only started to notice how they're not responding well (although I'm glad for those bulbs I planted at the beginning of the year! I think that they are not happy having to be the most sun on my yard. It's the same with hydrangea, too - some varieties were able to make it, others didn't. As long as it's shaded out of the most sun you'd get plants that did just fine all summer. There's been so much rain here lately - they're definitely going to look good by Labor Day.

Our own camellias didn't do well one year but were wonderful the next! I know that is due to differences in sunlight and watering. So, I think you'll find them in your garden to be quite happy. They can even be forced indoors - just be sure to add lots of fertilizer so they aren't too big for the containers they end up in. Good luck!

If you know that the sun will be there, just start your day (and your watering) early! I have a really good sun/shade garden, but when it's been dry lately, it's kind of hard for it to recover. I've been told about the need to water in smaller amounts during the first hour or two in the morning.

So if it's possible to take it inside and have it grow (potentially) I would think that would help it. It might be worth experimenting with one inside to see if it works? If you know that the sun will be there, just start your day (and your watering) early!

Do camellias do well in pots?

Did dido?

I have a lot of didos, and I have come to realize that they do better in containers than in the ground. And that seems crazy to me! I've been wanting to try my hand at growing didos for years. After reading and rereading the excellent gardening books I own, I've finally got around to trying it. Well, if you want to call it trying, it was more like falling over a lot. For example, I planted eight didos in February this year. Five of them survived until April.

A few were killed by a cold snap during the night on March 1st, when snow fell onto their new sprouts. The others were hit by hail that came while I was watering them at night on March 4th. Two more plants were smacked by hail in mid-May. Three others were attacked by an infestation of caterpillars.

When I say they all died, I mean that none of the three survivors are thriving. They do well with lots of water. But they're all very different sizes, and all have the same shape.

The two survivors. My favorite of the three, however, is the one that's been at the top of the list for weeks now. It's a perfect miniature dido, about 6 tall and 2 wide. You can see it on the left side of the picture, tucked in against the house, barely visible, but there it is. It has lovely red buds about an inch long in early June, but there's no sign of flowers on it yet.

At the very edge of the shade from the house it's also not taking up any water. But then in a week or two you see that new plant growth coming from its crown. It's already taller than it was the day I planted it. So here it is in July. This time there's no buds to speak of, but still the new growth has increased in height even more. There's one little leaf that seems to be struggling to grow larger. Maybe it's a leaf that's turned black, or it could be that it's struggling to turn black as fast as it should.

How do you keep a camellia blooming?

I have a camellia in a planter which has never bloomed.

I brought it home some years ago and placed it on an east window ledge and then I forgot all about it. Last week I dug it up, fertilised it but that was probably all. I've had it in very bright sunshine for about 8 months now. It looks absolutely great, green leaves and bright red flowers (that would be the blooming I've been waiting for).

But it's never done a thing. The last time it bloomed was the summer before I moved in. Its foliage is so dense and green, maybe, even, the right shade of green (would a change to lime help?) for the room

Your tree did not start blooming until you introduced fresh leaves as soon as you took it out of its container. Did you bring it home with good roots? If so, I'd take it out and replant it immediately and let it grow without disturbance. If you took care of it well while it was in the pot, you can keep caring for it after it's planted.

You can plant a container that had blooming camellias and that same kind will give you the same results, but you'll have to put the plant in a little more shallow. Keep the roots down but don't cover them up or put dirt back over them.

Good luck with the tree. Your camellias are such great plants.

If I get nothing else from this, at least they'll have their own answers! I bought it from a local nursery, as a present for someone else. After buying and storing it, I found this answer on another site. (The person whose house it's in got her parents' old camellias to repot.)

Question: What do you do if a Camellia does not bloom? "It is important to buy a Camellia in full blossom, because these are the few months when they flower again, even from the buds left on after the first bloom." - Gitta Nachtweiendmamma. In the summer when I planted mine, they all showed signs of buds that later turned into blooms, which I assumed was what the lady who sold them wanted me to believe. But I guess they're too impatient.