Preventing Camellia Bud Drop
A young camellia in my garden formed its first flower buds this year. The buds developed to a promising plumpness and then dropped off the shrub. How can I prevent this happening again next year?
A sudden cold spell can sometimes damage buds enough to cause them to drop, especially if frosted buds are exposed to morning sun; however, the most common and likely cause of camellia bud drop in our climate is a lack of soil moisture during the period of bud formation in the previous summer.
It is helpful, as temperatures rise in late spring, to water camellias (and rhododendrons) deeply and apply a nourishing, moisture-retentive layer of compost or compost mixed with fine fir bark over the root area. Avoid placing any of the mulch against the shrubs’ bases. Keep the plants consistently watered through the summer.
Managing Weeds in Fertile Soil
As home gardeners are advised to do, I make sure I plant into soil that is fertile and well-plumped with a nourishing compost. I wonder, though, whether such rich soils encourage more and bigger weeds. My plots sprout prodigious weed growth.
Weeds that emerge in any given planting area have more to do with the history of growth in the site than with the soil conditions. If unwanted plants have been allowed to shed an abundance of seeds in previous years, that site will likely host more of the same weedy growth.
I find weeds appearing in an area with a humus-rich, fertile soil the easiest to deal with. They grow quickly into robust little plants that tend to loll about in the cushy conditions for a while before flowering and setting seeds. They are also easy to pull up and their juicy greenery is a useful compost activator. In poor, thin soils, weed seeds produce stunted growth that is not easy to pick out of the soil. Sensing the threatening conditions, the weak seedlings move quickly to flowering and seed formation before producing much green growth.
