Hi NHBabs,

It is planted in the ground and in a shaded spot. The spot gets shaded by neighbor’s house and tree to a less degree. I planted it in early Sept I believe.

It actually looked good through much of the winter but then I noticed the leaves started to look yellow in Feb. We get some wild temperature swings late winter here.

There are still some flower buds but they are grey so pretty sure they won’t flower.

I’ll wait until end of May and hopefully it will put one new leaves. If New leaves don’t emerge and only the two small branches at the base are alive by that point, should I trim it and hopefully new growth will emerge quickly? Or will it take years for it to grow back to the original height?

Thanks a lot for your knowledge and suggestion!

I don’t know enough about Camellias to answer those last questions. Perhaps ask on the shrub forum.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/shrubs

Thanks! I’ll also look into a hardy/shade variety for replacement in case this one doesn’t make it.

Approximately where in NY are you located, assuming your posted hardiness zone is accurate, you are either in NYC or on Long Island. There should be NO REASON for you to not to be successful with camellias in the area. You should probably have planted them in the Spring though, not the Fall, but September is early enough that it should still have been fine, and there are other reasons plants can go into decline. How are you drainage condition? My soils are so saturated from Summer, Fall and Winter rain that my lawn has been killed. My Winter zone is similar to yours geographically and climatologically and I have no winter issues with mine. (Mine have DEER issues LOL, until they are tall enough to escape the issue. I have shorter ones that are now leafless due to being eaten, and they should recuperate (after which time I will move them to an area safer from deer.) Good luck!

In cold Zone 6 in the NE, established/new camellias may sometimes temporarily loose leaves after very cold temperature drops, just like other shrubs do but they will leaf out later when temps warm up. But in Z7B, if there are no injuries, it would be a bit rare unless there were big dips. I have not had foliage issues due to temperatures as cold as 13F in January but, if a new, not-yet-established camellia did not have enough soil moisture before these wild temperature dips, it may have started leaf browning issues. Your big dips probably happened in Nov 22-23 ish; and Jan 21, 30-31-ish. The single digits in January of this year probably caused the problem for this shrub.

Lack of sufficient soil moisture in the top 4" in a dry (warm or cold) winter may cause leaf drop. To prevent the loss of leaves and-or buds, I water deeply & mulch on the night before those very cold, wild temperature dips; or that you water on dry, warm winters where the soil has not frozen;.I maintain 2-4" of organic mulch.

When I turned off the drip irrigation once during winter.... and forgot to turn it back on... I started to get browning of leaves during dry, warm, late winter months.

Then, as blue bayou mention, there are leaf pests.... :o(... double sigh.... although they eat the leaves and not make a leaf suddenly turn brown without injuries unless a branch was eaten/damaged further below.

Remember that this is a newly planted shrub so it needs to get water where the pot's potting soil is located. When watering, start near the base and water outwards around it and water only the soil, not the leaves.

You can very carefully and lightly scratch some branches to see if you see "green". It should be time for leaf out this month. I suspect your are probably close to being done with frigid temps. Knock on wood!

In zone 8a in the PNW region (pretty far North) most camellia varieties do not lose any leaves over the Winter.

Thanks everyone For your help! I am in NYC, overall not too cold but there are always a few days with very low night temperatures like Luis mentioned. I also didn’t water it in the winter fearing it may cause damage, but perhaps it Was too dry for the fall planted shrub.

Unfortunately i believe this poor Camelia is gone. I scratched the branches and didn’t see any green.

I planted 4 shrubs since sunmmer of last year. the first Azalea died because it was still too hot. The second Azalea is doing wonderfully, with full green leaves in the winter. Third Azalea survived the winter but lost most leaves and don’t have many buds on. the Fourth one is the Camelia. So I suspect fall planting is really tricky for my area for the plants to establish. I’ll stick to spring planting this year.

Well, spring started two weeks ago so good luck with your spring plantings! Some of the damage from very cold temperatures is caused by dehydration so remember to water before the temperature dip if the soil has not frozen.

PS- Today, I saw a potted hardy hibiscus of mine growing from the base; I was starting to think it had died... like your plants too. But the roots made it thru and all growth is coming from the base. It is a fast grower so I will keep it.

Since the roots of your camellia may be still alive, it may grow again from the base. Continue giving it TLC thru part of April before throwing it away. However, if it were me, I would get another new one. Camellias grow very slowly usually and I would not have the patience to wait until it got as big as it used to be. That would take several years.