Can I feed camellias with ericasous plant food?
Yes you can feed Camellias with ericaceous plant food, as they are “ericaceous”. You may find though that your Camellia is very happy where it is at present and it may only need a general fertiliser, such as Growmore. Most ericaceous plants only suffer when gardeners attempt to grow them in alkaline soils. This will cause the iron to be locked in by the calcium in the soil. The result will be lime green sickly looking leaves instead of deep green glossy leaves. If your Camellia has sick looking light green leaves then you should feed it with an iron feed such as sequestered iron. This can either be done with granules that sprinkle on the soil or a solution that you water on. All camellias will benefit from a mulch of “lime free” leaf mulch or composted bark around the base and a spring feed. If it’s been in a pot for a few years and it looking tired, then you can knock it out of the pot, knock off some of the soil and re-pot with ericaceous compost. Hope that helps and that you have a
