I would love to have a camellia in my new yard as a tribute to my mother. I found this one on Monrovia that seems appropriate.

Is it truly hardy in my area? How will it do on the north side of my neighbor's house (my lot line)? How long until it will reach 6 feet or so? What should I know?

I am a total newbie with this so I appreciate any advice you can give me. I don't mind spending money for a bigger plant, but I don't want it to die on me. Also, I would like to enjoy the flowers....don't want them to freeze off by a late frost. Any hope?? Thanks.

My sister and her DH have only lived in the house for 3 years now, but just from observations, it will get some winter burn on the leaf tips but the buds seem to do very well down here. It was planted across from a neighbor's garage wall in a south-facing location. She had since put up a 6ft privacy fence between the garage and her property, so the protection should be similar or even better.

These are very slow-growing and I expect it has taken hers ~30 - 40 years to get to that size. Depending on how big a shrub you buy, it could take at least a decade or two to get to 6ft. I don't know how hardy the buds are but they seem to skirt our late frosts and snows down here. I can't vouch for your weather up there. We haven't had below 0° F in 11 years. I think most northern gardeners have the fall-blooming ones so they don't have to worry about late frosts in spring that can decimate the spring-bloomers.

Here's what hers looked like last year (we were by there Easter this year and it had alot of nice fat flower buds on it):