Bud drop on a camellia is almost always caused by one of two things: drought stress during the summer when the buds were being formed, or a sudden temperature fluctuation in late winter. Camellias set next year's buds between July and September, and if the plant becomes water-stressed during that window, the buds form poorly and drop before opening. The fix is consistent watering from midsummer through to October, every year without exception. If the plant is in a pot, this is even more critical as containers dry out far faster than open ground.

The most likely cause in an Irish garden is aspect. If the camellia is in a south or east-facing position, the buds and open flowers are exposed to early morning sun after a frost. The frost damages the tissue overnight, and when the sun hits the plant in the morning it melts the ice crystals inside the petals too quickly. The cells rupture, the petals collapse inward and turn brown, often while the rest of the plant looks perfectly healthy. The flowers may look fine the previous evening and be completely ruined by mid-morning. This is not disease and it is not a feeding problem. It is a placement problem, and the only real solution is to move the plant to a west-facing or sheltered north-facing position where it will not receive direct early morning sun during the flowering period.

A secondary possibility is camellia petal blight, a fungal disease that spreads in wet, mild conditions, which describes a typical Irish spring rather precisely. Infected flowers turn brown from the centre outward and the petals have a leathery texture when touched. The spores overwinter in fallen petals and soil, so the most important control measure is removing and disposing of infected flowers promptly rather than letting them fall. Do not compost them. If you are seeing this pattern consistently year after year regardless of frost, and particularly if the browning starts at the centre of the flower rather than the edges, petal blight is worth investigating further.

Yellowing between the leaf veins while the veins themselves stay green is almost certainly chlorosis, caused by the plant's inability to take up iron from the soil. In camellias, this is nearly always a soil pH problem. If the soil is too alkaline, above pH 6.5, the iron in the soil becomes chemically unavailable to the roots even if it is physically present. The solution is to address the soil pH rather than simply add iron. For plants in open ground, switch to an ericaceous feed and mulch heavily with acidic material such as pine bark. For plants in containers, repot into fresh ericaceous compost. If the soil is fundamentally the wrong pH for a camellia, the long-term answer is to move it to a container where you control the growing medium entirely.

Yes, camellias can be moved successfully if it is done at the right time and with enough care. The best time to move a camellia in Ireland is late autumn, once flowering has finished and before the coldest weather sets in, or in early spring just before growth begins. Take as large a rootball as you can manage, water thoroughly beforehand to reduce stress, and replant immediately into the new position with improved soil around the rootball. Expect the plant to take a full season to recover fully. Moving a camellia out of an east-facing position into a more sheltered west-facing spot can make a very significant difference to how it performs long term.

Poor flowering in one year after a good previous year almost always comes back to summer drought stress, specifically during the bud-setting period from July to September. If the plant was not adequately watered through that period, fewer buds will have formed, and those that did may be smaller and more vulnerable to dropping. A late hard frost in spring after buds have swelled can also destroy a season's flowers before they open. Check also whether the plant has been pruned at the wrong time. Any pruning done after midsummer will remove the developing buds for the following year. Prune camellias immediately after flowering, not before.

Before reaching for a feed, it is worth thinking about what the soil is actually capable of doing. A camellia that is consistently struggling despite regular feeding is usually in soil that cannot hold or process nutrients properly, and adding more feed into that situation produces diminishing returns. The starting point is the soil itself: its structure, its biological activity and its ability to retain what you add. If the soil feels lifeless or compacted, that is where the problem begins and where the attention needs to go first.

Once the soil is in reasonable condition, camellias do benefit from feeding between late spring and midsummer, when they are putting on new growth and beginning to set buds for the following year. Use a feed formulated specifically for ericaceous plants. Standard general-purpose feeds are often too alkaline and can worsen chlorosis over time. Apply in late April or May and again in June if the plant is working hard. Avoid feeding after July, as encouraging late soft growth increases frost vulnerability. Camellias in containers need more regular feeding than those in open ground, as nutrients wash out of pots more quickly, particularly through an Irish winter.