In November 2020, I was busy planting evergreen bushes that were bought from a local nursery, and also searching online for more options. One day, after I set the criteria on the Home Depot website, a few choices of beautiful camellia popped up, all with a very reasonable price tag. When the order arrived a week later, I was pleasantly surprised to see two small camellia plants full of buds!

I planted one in the front yard and one in the backyard. It was unusually warm at the time, and the camellia blossomed. Amazingly, after a major storm in early December, the flowers were intact.

As of this writing (now in late February 2021), the two camellia plants had endured several storms and had been completely buried in the snow for weeks. I wonder if they are still alive and if they will survive.

In Chinese, camellia is called 山茶花. It reminds me of the song 山茶花 by Teresa Teng.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FX823I_Zmk