Margaret Thornhill 
I still remember the spring I lost a twelve-year-old Survivor’ camellia to what I can only describe as fertilizer enthusiasm. It was my fourth season growing camellias seriously, and I pushed nitrogen too early, right before a late frost snapped…
Three springs ago, I stood in front of a Survivor’ camellia I had planted seven years earlier and felt genuinely defeated. The leaves had gone from that deep, waxy green I love to a sickly yellow-green with darker veins running…
Three years. Three springs of walking past that April Kiss’ camellia in my side garden, watching it push out healthy dark green leaves while producing exactly zero flowers. I fertilized it. I watered it. I talked to it — yes,…
I still remember standing in the garden that March morning, coffee going cold in my hand, staring at my twelve-year-old camellia like I’d just watched a car crash in slow motion. She’d been loaded with fat pink buds. A hard…
It was a gray November afternoon, and my neighbor leaned over the fence with that particular look — the one that says “I’m about to save you from yourself.” He pointed at the small shrub I was tucking into the…
It was a Tuesday in January when my neighbor Linda showed up at my door holding her phone out like it was evidence at a crime scene. On the screen: a photo of her camellia, leaves slightly curled, a few…
It was the third week of January, and I was standing in my garden at 6 a.m. in my dressing gown, watching a hard frost settle over my camellias like a slow disaster. One of them — a Jury’s Yellow’…
I still remember standing in my backyard on a January morning, staring at my beloved Kramer’s Supreme’ camellia, its buds turned to brown mush overnight. My neighbor Patty had told me back in October not to worry — “camellias are…
When Roots Run Deep: What My Grandmother’s Camellia Taught Me About Transplanting My grandmother’s camellia wasn’t just a plant. It was thirty years of November mornings, quiet cups of tea, and a garden she’d built from nothing. So when the landlord’s sale threatened to leave it behind, we refused to abandon it without a fight. … Read more
