or border well drained it is hardly possible to
overwater the roots of camellias during their period of wood-making.
The temperature may range from 50 deg. to 65 deg. during most of the period.
As the flower-buds form, and become more conspicuous, the tropical
treatment may become less and less tropical, until the camellias are
subjected to the common treatment of greenhouse or conservatory plants
in summer. Even at this early stage it is wise to attend to the
thinning of the buds. Many varieties of camellias--notably that most
useful of all varieties, the double white--will often set and swell
five or ten times more buds than it ought to be allowed to carry.
Nothing is gained, but a good deal is lost, by allowing so many embryo
flower-buds to be formed or partially developed. It is in fact far
wiser to take off the majority of the excess at the earliest possible
point, so as to concentrate the strength of the plant into those that
remain.

As it is, however, often a point of great moment to have a succession
of camellia flowers for as long a period as possible on the same
plants, buds of all sizes should be selected to remain. Fortunately,
it is found in practice that the plants, unless overweighted with
blooms, do not cast off the smaller or later buds in their efforts to
open their earlier and larger ones. With the setting, thinning, and
partial swelling of the flower-buds the semi-tropical treatment of
camellias must close; continued longer, the result would be their
blooming out of season, or more probably their not blooming at all.

The best place for camellias from the time of setting their
flower-buds to their blooming season is a vexed question, which can
hardly be said to have been settled as yet. They may either be left in
a cool greenhouse, or placed in a shaded, sheltered position in the
open air. Some of the finest camellias ever seen have been placed in
the open air from June to October. These in some cases have been stood
behind south, and in others behind west walls. Those facing the east
in their summer quarters were, on the whole, the finest, many of them
being truly magnificent plants, not a few of them having been imported
direct from Florence at a time when camellias were far less grown in
England than now.

In all cases where camellias are placed in the open air in summer,
care will be taken to place the pots on worm proof bases, and to
shield the tops from direct sunshine from 10 to 4 o'clock.