Overpruned Camilla in WNC?

Hi,

I'm new to this board and was hoping someone could answer a question. We moved into a new house this past fall and had a very overgrown camilla (5 feet tall, 4 feet across) up against the porch. It was blocking air and the paint and wood was starting to deteriorate so we pruned it back, pretty much to 4-5 inch stumps. Is there any hope of it coming back from it's stumps or should I start digging them out? I don't know the variety, the single blossom we saw before the pruning "episode" was a medium pink.

Thanks in advance,
Karen

i think it may come back, but i am not sure. 5 feet x 4 feet soesn't sound very overgrown for a camellia to me. i think that is pretty normal for them to get that large, and to me, it sounds like the problem here is poor placement. if you want to keep the plant, if it even comes back, i suggest moving it to a place where it will have more room to grow and still be in a pretty shady location.

Thanks, I agree that it probably has to be relocated, but I think we will wait and see if it survives it's haircut before deciding whether we need to be gentle in digging it up or if we just chop it up and be done with it. I would like to save it, if it will grow, but saving the porch by drying it out and repainting was more critical.

well, first things first i guess!

For the future I simply prune the back of all foundation plants so they don't touch the house. Pruning it to the ground was a little to much I think. They might come back.

I moved in to a house in October '06 that had some overgrown gardens. Underneath all the out of control English Ivey there were a couple camellias that I decided to cut all the way to the ground early last summer. I figured if they came back great, if not I'd plant new ones and start over. Originally they were about 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide. To my surprise one of them is growing back nicely. Here is a picture of it which is about 18 inches tall.

I didn't really start gardening until I moved here, but what I have learned so far... if you want it to grow back then it won't. If you don't want it to grow back then it will. I guess that's why only one of mine grew back. :-)

Thanks for all the great comments. The remainder of the foundation plantings are gone. They were so overgrown after decades of neglect and out of proportion to the area they were originally planted, we decided to just start fresh.