52. Severe Camellia Prune

Big cut, regret, hope.

The mature Camellias at the front yard were reaching into the gutters. They needed an extreme prune.

I found these instructions from Home & Gardens:

To reshape a very overgrown camellia you will need to prune it in two stages and sacrifice its flowers for the following season. Start with a drastic prune in late winter or early spring, reducing it by a third to a half of its former size – or more in extreme cases. As new shoots start to appear in the growing season you will prune again to thin out the bushy new growth from the centre of the plant to encourage fewer, but stronger new stems. They are fairly fast growing shrubs, so should soon regain their former size.

Let’s hope these instructions are correct.

Before

Photo timestamp February 3, 2024 2:45pm

After

Photo timestamp February 3, 2024 3:15pm

Yikes, they look so sad.

Really hope they bounce back.

Here is what I cut-off, it always looks bigger on the ground than it did in the tree:

The next step is wait for new growth in the spring, and then do the thinning per the instructions I found. Fingers crossed.