Transplant the camellia when it's dormant (before it puts out new leaves in the spring.) Keep it shaded and watered after you move it until it gets established. Good luck. Rich

Hello, Phill787. Bright yellow. Oh Lord. I would leave the leaves there and let the shrub replace them at the proper time. Yes, it will "look" strange for a while but the plant is stressed enough to add pruning to the list. Just maintain the soil moist, well mulched, acidic until it drops the leaves on its own. Just wondering about the damage.... can you post a picture or email me a picture. I am curious how bad it was.

I have had a chance to move some rather large camellias in the past. In fact I moved over a hundred back some years ago. You may be moving them a little early in the year but on the upper Pacific Coast, the weather might be in your favor. First, root prune the camellias at about 36 inches from the trunk. If you can get wider, go as wide away from the trunk as possible. The Camellia has shallow roots and you will get most of them within the top foot of top soil. I would use an 18" sharp shooter. Go all around each plant about 18" deep. Second, prepare the place where you are going to plant the Camellias. I would till up an area about 6 ft. in diameter per plant. After you till the soil to at least 18" to 24"deep, I would add about 3 or 4 cu. ft. of a combination of ground up pine bark and sand. I would till this into the spot and also add some natural fertilizer. If you have cotton seed meal available, I would use that. I would put in about 10 lbs of cotton seed meal into the mixture of pine bark and sand. This will give you a real fluffy mound. It should be about 6 ft. wide. Let it sit for as long as you can before moving the large plants. When you move the plants, the later in the year the better, I would move off the top foot of soil from your prepared bed, sit the large rootball on top of the soil and cover it with the soil mixture that you removed. You will note that you are planting the Camellia on the top of the ground. Do not dig it out so that you are planting the plant in a hole. You want to have it sitck out of the ground at least 8 to 10 inches. Prune the top of the plant back to about 18: from the trunk of the plant. Keep it watered good but do not drown it. Let it settle on its own. Within 3 or 4 months it will settle about six inches and will continue to settle a little more over the next year. Keep at least two inches of the soil mixture over the exposed roots. I would also use some root tone in the hole to stimulate new root growth. I wrote an article for the Camellia Journel several years ago about moving established Camellias. If you would contact Tom Johnson, the chief gardner at the American Camellia Society through their web site, he could probably get you some articles on moving large Camellias. Ann Walton is the Executive Director of the A.C.S. and she may be able to point you to someone in the Washington area who has some experience as well. Bob

Review the post titled Transplanting 45 year old Camellia; it has a lot of useful information. You can also contact local members of the American Camellia Society in SC; see the link below for email addresses and phone numbers. Here is a link that might be useful: Amercian Camellia Society Chapters in SC