Looks like drought injury to me as well. Not a very congenial-looking planting site. Try moving the grass back farther and maintaining a 4" deep organic mulch (kept well away from the trunk), watering liberally during dry spells. The appearance of the turf and the composition of the native vegetation behind indicates a droughty, infertile soil. Sampling your soil and having it tested may reveal a glaring nutrient deficiency that if successfully addressed would great enhance results. Ask your state cooperative extension service for help with soil testing.

If you are seeing leaf nodes develop, and the plant passes the scratch test, it sounds like you have a live one. The leaves, however were probably already goners when you bought them, and so are doing what dead camellia leaves do- look fine for a bit then gradually dry out, turn brown (or yellow) and eventually fall off. Camellias do everything verrry slowly, but if you have leaf nodes, you should soon see leaves- spring is the season for camellias to put out new foliage. Don't expect your camellia to look great for at least another year or two- it has had a bad shock to the system. Although you sound like you've given it a home that it should do well in, it needs to first get its root system situated in a new location, and then get serious about leafing out and then flowering. First things first, but if you're seeing signs of life, you just need to be patient and let it get on with its recovery from the cold damage. You might be tempted to fertilize in the spring, but organic matter like compost or cottonseed meal or liquid seaweed might be a better choice. What I would avoid doing is giving the plant anything with much nitrogen- it needs to spend some time getting its roots established in its new home, and nitrogen won't help with that and may undermine the process. Some mulch can help the plants stay evenly moist and keep the pH on the acidic side- do you have access to pine straw/bark or another good organic mulch? Going by what you've said, the plants should recover, but a little patience will be needed.

Sorry about the problem you are having, Vee. You can try fungicides but chemical controls, such as mancozeb (Bonide Mancozeb Flowable, Southern Ag Dithane M-45) are limited in effectiveness because they must be applied before infection occurs (not after.. catch-22). You should use them for the next 2-3 years though. Start sprays at budbreak and continue through the first of June at 7- to 14-day intervals. Apply all chemicals according to directions on the label. All you can do now is throw away the affected leaves in the trash (not the compost bin) and remove/destroy young galls before the lower leaf surfaces turn white and spores are released, or the disease will be worse the next year. Luis

I notice that you are both concentrating on watering. Is this the cause of flowers and buds turning brown and falling off and leaves turning brown? I am new at this so please forgive my foolish questions. I respect your experience. The house is shaped like an L-shape. The camellia bed is in the inside corner of the L, with the bed facing north east. The plants are fertilized once a month with a regular fertilizer and are due about now. I hope to change to an acid fertilizer. I don't think I can count on winter rain being enough here in San Diego except maybe this past year. The drainage is a problem, since the property is inclined down toward the camellia bed from all directions. I suppose from your input that it could be the total cause of my problem. I can't figure out how to improve the drainage and neither have contractors come up with a solution. There doesn't appear to be an access for drainage downstream of the bed since it narrows significantly in that direction. Prior to modifying the camelia bed, adding mulch and changing to drip irrigation, I could readily see that the bed was always very wet with patches of moss on the surface. I could see that the soil was extremely wet and I often shut off the irrigation for long periods of time to help dry it out. Maybe I had better shut it off again. Being 82 years old and handicapped in a wheelchair I cannot readily dig down to sample the soil. Would you recommend that I brush away patches of mulch so I can see the soil and use my moisture meter attached to a stick? Perhaps gardening takes more effort than I can give it but I love my plants and will try anything.