Camellia "Yuletide".

wow very good Ange

Phew … well worth saving Ange!

Meadow, you would not want to be a plant in my garden!

Klahanie: we have the wrong sort of soil to be able to plant camellias in the garden. All mine are in pots so I don't expect them to go on forever. I enjoy them while I have them! Mine have spent the summer tucked in beside the greenhouse, north-facing but with a fair amount of sun. We bring them out round the house in the winter so we can see them in flower. This one and another is under my open, south-facing front porch. The other one has more buds than usual too, though no flowers yet.

Thanks, Paul and Sheila.

It is a really lovely one and fab colour for Xmas Ange. So pleased you put your foot down with it, nice to see now it's doing as it's told..:))

That's a shame, Klahanie. We repotted a large 'Nuccio's Pearl' last year. The job was an exhausting one and I wasn't sure how it would respond, well or badly from shock! It had been in the pot for some years. It is full of buds at the moment so I am hopeful!

It is a cheerful colour for the Christmas season, Janey. I think this is the first time it has bloomed on time.

It needed you to tell it what to do...:))

That's a very pretty one you've got there, Ange! Giving it some 'advice and encouragement' has obviously given it a boost of confidence!

Ha ha, Kate.

It’s so pretty! Mine went in the shredder!

Oh, Karen, so much of my garden went in the shredder last year. This plant nearly went in then, too, as it hadn't offered up a flower in 2 years. I threatened it last summer! I think so many plants are over-hyped.

You’re right Ange. You really have to do your research before buying. I recently bought an Almond tree as I thought moving south was an ideal chance to grow one. But only afterwards did I discover they cannot bear clay soil. So now I’ll have to keep it potted. That’s fine, but I felt very daft having bought it without researching properly. It’s on a semi dwarf rooting stock, so should be fine in a big pot.

I put a lot in my shredder 2 years ago when we bought our little flat here. Anything big in a pot had to be rehomed, and lots of my roses were removed because I just wasn’t there to take care of them. That was the worst part, but then I replaced them with some beautiful Hydrangea paniculata and my dwarf conifers from pots. And the garden instantly became much less work. A lot less colourful, but still very beautiful.

Oh, I've made plenty of errors like that one, Karen, thinking with my heart rather than my head. I think roses have been my downfall very often - I think a lot of them fall into the 'style over content' category particularly a number of the well-known ones.
Like you, I've discovered the joys of paniculatas and have become a little more knowledgeable about
conifers. I can't grow a lot of them in my soil but I love yews and thujas.

Ah yes…Pinus is my love. I love how the Japanese prune and train them.

I really must get a red camillea as my two white ones go brown once in flower.
I just can't bare to get rid of anything!

Rose, I'm learning to harden my heart both inside and out! It gets easier.. Each to their own, I say. I just got sick of falling over excess plants and pots. Now I'm just falling over excess house plants - you couldn't make it up!

Oh well Ange! There's not a lot I can say to that! lol

Lovely show of flowers there Ange. I think they like an ericaceous soil and feed, like rhododendrons and azaleas. It obviously listened to you....Prune before the end of June. My Grandad always said, anything flowering before June prune at the end of June/July and anything after that prune November/December.