Camellia bonsai care?

Yet again I succumbed to a rather bad addiction of buying bonsai trees from ads that end up not being all I'd hoped - might learn someday but haven't quite yet.

So this time I'm the proud owner of what might hopefully eventually become a decent bonsai Camellia.  I got it because it was not only a great price in a sale but mainly because it was in bud & I adore flowering shrubs.

At least it came in relatively good health. However, as I thought might happen - while the flowers did pop out quite quickly they just as quickly shrivelled up & fell off probably due to the various shocks the poor thing has undergone between transport & then room heat.  

Annoyingly it came with the most basic of info (don't let dry out - duhhhh!!!) so I'm now just wanting to ensure I don't completely kill it off.

It was sold as an indoor bonsai but I can't consider an outdoor shrub of its calibre being happy in my overheated high humidity house?  It'll get transplanted in the Spring possibly into a grit mix but for now, I'm just looking for some ideas on whether it'll need to be acclimated to outdoors in Jan/Feb or whenever the weather starts getting warmer?

Any other tips?

Sorry for pushing this up the queue again but as this is the best forum to try & gain some help, I really need to get some input to the question or this poor tree might likely not survive much longer. The more I've read the more it seems this should never have been sold at this point in the year as a flowering INDOOR bonsai? While it did flower the flowers didn't last too long in the high heat and I've nowhere cooler to put it until the frosts are over.

Anyone have any suggestions on its proper care at this stage - I really don't want to lose it if at all possible.
Thanks

TKR99 wrote:Sorry for pushing this up the queue again but as this is the best forum to try & gain some help, I really need to get some input to the question or this poor tree might likely not survive much longer.  The more I've read the more it seems this should never have been sold at this point in the year as a flowering INDOOR bonsai?  While it did flower the flowers didn't last too long in the high heat and I've nowhere cooler to put it until the frosts are over.

Anyone have any suggestions on its proper care at this stage - I really don't want to lose it if at all possible.  
Thanks

I am no camellia bonsai expert, but I do have one that I am working on, it is the "curly eago" variety. I have a couple growing in the landscape and there are hundreds if no thousands of many different cultivars growing all over in town. One thing for sure, it is not an indoor tree, keeping it inside will surely cause its demise. They can actually survive fairly cold temps. Mine was in bloom and it has been in the low twenties (F) all week. The only negative impact was that the cold killed the flowers and partially open buds. The ones that are still tight will open as soon as it gets warmer. I don't know how cold your winters are, but as long as it is not freezing are below, I would put it outside. Even if you have to slowly expose it to outside temps over the course of a week until it is left out permanently. Repot in the spring when you start to see it push new buds.

Here is a thread on mine, located on the other bonsai forum, https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/contorted-camelia.21738/

Hope it Helps,

John

Thanks SO much John - that helps tremendously. I really just needed that confirmation of my own thoughts on it not being an indoor plant so for now I've got it in my rather cold kitchen - and thankfully here the winter is non-existent to a degree again this year. We get an odd night of frost but my yard's fairly sheltered so it doesn't seep down - at least all my other bonsai are coping fine with it. So, as you suggested, I'll start getting it slowly exposed - couple of hours out in the early afternoon should keep it right all being well, & hopefully it'll start picking up again in the weeks to come.

It's sad that such beautiful plants are being sold so errantly - I got it as they had dropped the price down ridiculously & it was in bud at the beginning of December but I figured it had to have been forced into flowering at that time - seemed so wrong somehow. It did look wonderful for the 2 weeks the flowers held on (despite the high indoor heat) but as soon as they dropped I started to worry about whether it should be elsewhere than in a warm room.

So thank you for responding - I'll update later once I get it acclimated outside hopefully