Hi Jackie,
They sound wonderful. Seems you are doing the right things to give your ancient camellias a gentle booster shot. Giving them some food especially for camellias is a good thing...they require acidic soil. Is your soil in Cali naturally more acidic than alkaline? I would also recommend adding some compost to the area. There is not a living plant I know of that doesn't like a little compost around its roots. You don't have to spade or till it in because camellia roots could be harmed, but a little - say a 1/4 - 1/2" around the dripline of your camellias will eventually work its way into the soil with rains (or sprinklings) and they should show signs of new green growth when you do that. Also, putting some Copperas to green up (and acidify) your camellias is another idea. It's good to fertilize after the blooming period, because that is when camellias usually begin to gather food for their next bloom the following year. Also, if you are planning to prune them, you should do it soon after they finish blooming, and not too severly. They are old and may not take well to anything but a light pruning. The only worry is them getting alot more sun than they are used to after all these decades. But it sounds as if you still have other sources of shade for your camellias (house, other trees, etc.) so you shouldn't see any sunburn on your leaves. I hope this helps. Take care,
Fireflyintexas

Thanks! I have never heard of Copperas - I will go look for some. I had to laugh when you mentioned mulch - the bed they are in is so old, and was under the eugenie tree for at least since 1920, and has ancient boxwood hedges on both sides. Consequently, it has grown up with accumulated leaf debris to the point that the current level of the soil is maybe 10 inches above the driveway on one side and the brick path on the other - it has been mulching itself!

That bed has sprinklers in it, which are turned way down - do camellias need a lot of water? It gets very dry & warm here in the summertime.

Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing how they do - thanks for the assistance.

Jackie

Why do you need to prune the camellias? I fear that pruning old camellias such as these ( you will really be 'topping' them, it sounds like) will be a bad mistake. The older a tree or shrub is, the less likely it is to recover from such pruning.

If the camellias simply don't fit into the space you have, it might be better to simply remove them entirely and replace them with something that you will appreciate. I fear the stump cutting (topping) will result in very sad looking old plants.

rhizo - thanks! That is why I came to this forum - because I know nothing about camellias. I looked it up on the internet, and found some articles that said you could hard prune old bushes to revive them, but if that is not correct I need to know that.

The bushes currently are over 10 feet high. The light pink one is fairly narrow and compact. The very dark pink one is all spread out - maybe 10-12 feet across. It is very scraggly looking. The top 1-3 feet of the highest branches are practically bare.

Sounds like you agree with fireflyintexas that only light pruning is in order since they are so old. So, I will do that. There is plenty of space for them, especially now that the eugenie tree is gone. The bed is about 10 ft by 20 ft, and the only thing in it other than the box hedge around it and the camellias is a small maple tree at the far end. If they revive and like the new amount of light I intend to leave them there - we have an entire garden full of plants planted by my husband's grandfather and great - grandparents, and I am trying to preserve as much of it as I can - it goes with the 1905 Queen Anne victorian house. I have been rooting the old roses & replanting them all over. One of them has even been identified as a rose lost to commerce in No America, and now it is back in commerce.

Again, thanks for the warning - that is exactly what I was looking for - good advice from folks who are experienced with camellias. I have been pretty much ignoring these, except for summer water and some food once a year.

Jackie

Sounds like you have a wonderful place. Please know that any suggestions that we may offer to you should be considered lightly...since our advice is tendered to you completely sight and site unseen. For all I know, it would be possible for someone who knows how to DETAIL prune to shape up these old camellias to their benefit and not their detriment.

I think that if I were in your shoes, I'd sniff around to see if there is a Camellia Club somewhere in the vicinity, or some other organization that can steer you to someone who is an artist when it comes to pruning.

Thanks - I did look around, and there are none nearby. However, I did look at the web site for the American Camellia Society, and it reminded me so much of the American Rose Society - huge emphasis on showing cut flowers in competitions, etc. Not my cup of tea at all.

So, I have pruned my old camellias gently - as if they were old old tea roses. Not too much dead wood, but some. Found at least 6 old long wires that were tying the bushes to the now gone tree to support them. The bushes were leaning away from the tree - I presume to look for more light. Not a problem now. It turned out that there were 3 old turned off sprinkler heads in that bed - we turned them back on, because of all of the info I found about how camellias like to have a lot of water. Between the years & years of fallen leaf litter from the eugenie tree (they are evergreen but shed leaves continuously) and the sawdust left behind from when the tree was taken down, there is about 12 inches of "mulch" in that bed already! I am removing some of it, so that the base of the bushes are not buried.

Next task is to weed all of the tree seedlings that are in that bed - not only eugenies, but privet, plum, oak, black walnut, & who knows what else. Luckily, many of them are rooted in the mulch layer, and come right up.

The 3 ft wide planter we ordered to go on top of the 2 1/2 ft high eugenie stump is coming tomorrow, so after that gets put in and planted (I think mostly with trailing petunias, etc,) I will finish weeding and then feed the camellias. Hope to have the entire bed looking civilized & pretty within a few months. Thanks so much for your suggestions -

Jackie

Since your plants sound to be already in good shape and you now turned on sprinklers that used to be off, monitor the soil for 1-2 weeks to make sure it does not become wet.