Camellia Shishigashira

How are you going to overwinter them? At the Missouri Botanical Garden, they keep the camellias in a greenhouse.
 
How are you going to overwinter them? At the Missouri Botanical Garden, they keep the camellias in a greenhouse.
So....I bought it over the winter as a Red Pot Special at Home Depot....around Christmas time.

I assumed that it was a very cold hearty plant....but it may not be.
However, the Mid-Atlantic region really dodged a bullet this winter with having no real winter.....lol!
I'll chalk it up as a win....no complaints here.
 
I guess my plan for these is to get the roots established in the good substrate first.
Then move them to larger containers to grow out and beef up.
I'll need to educate myself on the species during that time.

And @Carol 83 I guess I never really properly answered your question....at this point I plan to just mulch them on the ground next winter.
I keep most of my trees under my back deck, on the North side of the house, blocked on 3 sides from wind and direct light.
 
I have several of these in my landscape and one in a pot, they grow slowly. Propagate well from cuttings, I had one take at about 0.5". I'm guessing you'll want to move these to larger pots for a few years and forget about them. I just put my cutting in the ground in an effort to reduce my clutter of pots
 
I have several of these in my landscape and one in a pot, they grow slowly. Propagate well from cuttings, I had one take at about 0.5". I'm guessing you'll want to move these to larger pots for a few years and forget about them. I just put my cutting in the ground in an effort to reduce my clutter of pots
Yeah, they're going to need some real girth to look like anything that resembles a bonsai in the future.
 
Majority of Camelia are zone 7a hardy. A few are hardy into zone 6. Most of the "hardy Camelia" are zone 6b. From Camelia Forest's website only a small few are zone 6a hardy.

The Camelia Forest entry for 'Shishigashira' lists it as only winter hardy thru zone 7a. It will need at least some winter protection in your northern Maryland area.
 
Majority of Camelia are zone 7a hardy. A few are hardy into zone 6. Most of the "hardy Camelia" are zone 6b. From Camelia Forest's website only a small few are zone 6a hardy.

The Camelia Forest entry for 'Shishigashira' lists it as only winter hardy thru zone 7a. It will need at least some winter protection in your northern Maryland area.
Thanks Leo!
 
I am still experimenting with my camellia soil mix. At this point rounded coarse sand, coarse peat, commercial acid plant potting mix, and akadama are my ingredients. No longer use Kanuma as I did not seem to get any significant improvement for the expense. Every zone will be different, but they seem to prefer a higher organic percentage. Not much info out there as camellias are not used often as bonsai. You chose an excellent cultivar.
 
Those look like flowers to me!

I collected this monster from someone's yard in February. It seems to be recovering slowly. Took about 3.5 months for a single bud to appear. I'm still not quite sure what I'll do with it. No flowers so far.

View attachment 331351
Sweet!
Good luck with it!
Is it a different variety?
I also got a new branch low on the trunk on each of them! I was happy about that.
 
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