What’s wrong with my Japanese Camillia?

[BellesAndGraces]

The “Picture This” app is telling me that the leaf scorch is due to both overwatering and underwatering 😂. It’s been in this pot since last summer and I admittedly haven’t watered it since perhaps Autumun and just left it to get on with it. Can it still be saved? Would it be both repotting it in new compost? To be honest I’m surprised it even has buds.

Have you checked the PH level of the soil? Camelias like acidic soil, so if the PH is too high that would prevent the plant from taking up nutrients properly. Might be worth giving it some fresh ericacious compost.

It needs feeding - miracle grow make a plant food for azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons - feed it from now until July and it will perk up. I don’t think you necessarily need to change the compost - normally top dressing is enough, (ie take off the top layer if compost and replace with new) but your camellia does look as though it needs watering! And it’s worth saving rainwater to water it with, particularly if you live in a hard water area.

Thank you both! The compost was definitely not acidic (it would have just been standard Westland Boost multi purpose) so I will replace the top layer with some acidic compost and also feed it with miracle grow. I’ll report back!

It looks to me like it has a multitude of mineral deficiencies, so give it some ericaceous fertiliser, top dress it with ericaceous compost and buy some seaweed with sequestered iron feed and give it some of that as well.

I think a bigger pot would help too!

Buy it some proper ericaceous feed, not normal MiracleGro. Although it may be the camera angle, the pot looks too small as well.

They like to grow quite big - so yes to a bigger pot, ericaceous compost, feed it up, and if possible plant in the ground? Mine has done so well since I got it out of a pot