Like many people who grew up in the north, I spent most of my childhood wishing that I lived in a plant hardiness zone that would support camellias, whose delicate flowers I knew (from books and movies) were among the most spectacular to grace the earth. (That's a slight exaggeration, I realize, but I think we can all agree that the flowers are very pretty; not to mention -- according to Wikipedia, the leaves of Camellia sinensis are "processed to create the popular beverage, tea." <3) I liked to imagine fields of camellias, all blooming in shades of white, pink, and red. For a long time, I even thought that the title of the famous Greta Garbo movie was "Camellia," when in fact it was "Camille." Still, of any flowering shrub, it seemed that the camellia most embodied the sublime, tragic (and reclusive!) melancholy that made Greta Garbo the greatest film star of all time (except for possibly Setsuko Hara). It never occurred to me that science would create a cold-hardy version that would eventually thrive in our (northern) garden. Yet here they are, exactly as I dreamed about. (We have pink and red; we also have a white bush, but it is too young to flower.) Also, according to Wikipedia, the Hesperides -- aka "Nymphs of the West" -- were known to wear wreaths of camellia as they tended to the golden apples that sustained the immortal gods.