Interestingly I just potted up some today, which I had germinated. I use a quick and easy method that takes about a month to germinate.

Take a ziploc bag and put a bunch of seeds in it, along with some spagnum moss that is moist but not wet. (Let the moss soak in water a few minutes then wring out the water.) Mix the seeds and sphagnum moss in the ziploc bad, zip it up, and then leave it in a warm place. I leave mine outside in the shade, since it is still warm here.

After the seeds are well germinated (you can see inside the bag as the white roots sprout) take them out and pot them up by placing the seed about even with the top of the soil, like mother nature does -- tap root down of course. It is recommended to pinch the tip end of the tap root to promote more lateral rooting. Some people dip the tap root in hormone to promote quicker rooting, I haven't tried that.

If you have a dog you might want to put the bags up high -- a lesson I learned the hard way last year. (The seeds make nice little crunchies.) ^-.-^

One more thing, some people say to store the seeds in the refrigerator for some time before germinating. I tried it this year (using some seeds from last year) and it worked great, almost 100 percent germination. All you do is put a couple drops of water in the bag along with the seeds to keep some humidity in the bag and put in the fridge. Something to experiment with. Good luck!

Hi Forrestal -

I saw your post back in mid October and coincidentally had some Japonica seeds on hand that I had just harvested from an unknown (but beautiful!) variety.

I had never used your method before but gave it a try this time and Voila! Five weeks later I had tap roots visible in the moss! ;) In mid-October and later, it is already getting chilly and about ready to frost here in VA, so I just placed the Ziplocs on a shelf in the kitchen that we keep a fluorescent tube over and it worked GREAT.

Thanks very much for the new (at least to me) germination method.

Bill.

I used a really lazy method. I picked up a bunch of camellia seeds off the ground from underneath all sorts of camellias at a local nursery very early last spring. I had read ForrestAL's method and had planned on using it but just never got around to it...story of my life. Anyway, I ended up just taking the seeds and putting them under the top layer of mulch in some of my many potted cammelias, JM's, and other stuff outside. I just happened to look at the pots mid-way through summer and saw that I had 11 baby camellias in pots. This was from about 15-20 seeds I would guess. I just took them out this fall and put them all in their own gallon pots. Pretty neat for what little I did!

I've read in a couple of places that it's better not to trim the tap root (especially if you know where you want to plant the camellia permanently) because the tap root produces deeper roots that help the plant tolerate drought. ACS recommends trimming the tap root if you plan to grow the camellia in a container. It's discussed at the very bottom of the page on the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: ACS Propagating Camellias by Cuttings and Seeds