During the Great Depression, many of California's larger gardens couldn't afford to keep staff to tend for plants; many plants were lost, but established camellias usually survived the lack of care. Twice-a-week watering is probably too much.

Here is a link that should help you find your county's Cooperative Extension Agency: http://ucanr.edu/County_Offices/

And here is a link to the SoCal Camellia Soc.: http://socalcamelliasociety.org

You should be able to get some good locally relevant info about what could be causing leaf drop that sounds like it is excessive; I hope it is something fairly simple and correct-able rather than Sudden Oak Death or Camellia Dieback.

Good luck,

Virginia

I also think you are watering too much. I seldom water my mature camellias.

Thank you -- these are all viable options that I'll need to investigate. I do think that I am perhaps watering too much; it's hard to gauge, especially now that our state has entered its fifth year of serious drought (even supposedly "drought-tolerant" plants are struggling). But these all appear to be fine recommendations, and I thank you.

Buy a water meter to see how moist the soil is. When you say you're watering briskly, how much water are you actually using? If you haven't done a deep watering, I would do that once a week and also add mulch to help hold the moisture in........especially if the shrubs got no water during the winter months due to the drought.

Any photos, Luis? Could be leaf sunburn in the summer if it's fine during our winters. Regarding our water restrictions, have you considered switching over to drip irrigation, it has far fewer restrictions. It's extremely easy, you can get a kit like this http://www.lowes.com/pd/Rain-Bird-Drip-Irrigation-Conversion-Kit/50342068 if you have an existing sprinkler system or convert your spigot to a drip zone.

Camellias grow deep roots and prefer to be watered deeply, as others have mentioned, which isn't possible when you use sprinklers designed for grass lawns or from a garden spray hose. With drip, you can run some emitters to slowly trickle 5-10 gallons (or more, not sure how mature it is) over the course of a few hours to deeply saturate the root zone and prevent runoff/wastage (I'm guessing you have clay soil, too?). You would be better off giving it a deep watering once every week or two (like a good rainfall event, when we still got them!) than keeping the top couple centimeters of soil moist. Deep watering encourages the plant to push its roots deeper in search of damper soil, making it more drought-tolerant. Also, mulch helps if you aren't already using it like others have mentioned. Better to underwater than overwater.

In November we had a drastic drop in the weather and all of the camelia drop all the leaves are they ok?

Maybe. Leaf drop can happen in very cold zones, like zone 6. Wait until spring to see if you detect leaf out or new growth from the base. Flower buds that get killed, branches that killed and plants that get killed will slowly turn the flower buds brown too and the buds may or may not fall down. When that drastic drop is forecasted, maintain 3-4" of mulch, water deeply the night before and if practical, consider protecting the plant. The plants tend to get desiccated by drying winds. Avoid letting the soil get bone dry in dry winters; water if the soil feels dry at a depth of 4 inches and temperatures are above freezing.