Hi Oath,

I'm pretty new to camelllias myself and my first camellia was an April Tryst (which is blooming right now, and I agree, it is gorgeous!.

I have mine at a southwestern exposure which is a bit too sunny for it. I grow tall delphiniums and cleomes in front of it to provide some shade against the afternoon sun. But one day this camellia will outgrow the delphs so I've planted a fast growing blue spruce.

The sun is only a problem in the summer. April Tryst takes a lot more sun than other types of camellias. In the winter it gets full sun without problem. See if you can provide mottled shade from the southwest side in the summer and it'll be pretty happy.

And remember shade doesn't mean complete shade, mottled is fine for this one.

The best locations for camellias (japonicas) 'North of the Camellia Belt' would be an open Western, Northwestern or Northern exposure, with protection from strong winds. This is sort of counterintuitive, since they are considered a rather tender plant. An Eastern exposure is OK, provided there is some shading from morning sun. Strong morning sun can be very hard on plants as it warms the leaves in winter, but when the ground is still frozen, the roots cannot pull moisture to supply it to the leaves. As a result you can get a lot of leaf browning which doesn't always show up until Spring. Sunny Southern exposures can result in lots of winter-burned leaves as well. If you have a Southern exposure that gets some shading from tree limbs for most of the morning, that would be an OK spot. My observations in Vienna, VA is that the absolute best-looking camellias were on the Northern and Western sides of homes. Full sun Southern- and Eastern-exposed plants showed winterburn. This is a 7A region. Don't know about 6B.

Hi,Just bought one myself.Don't forget they need an acid soil.Unfortunately we have an alkaline soil in this part of the UK and we can only grow them as potted plants using an ericaceous compost.