I would buy what is available at Home Depot or Lowes, and plant them now in filtered sun.

Save your receipts, and if they die in the next year, dig up the plant and return it.

Goatster, most Camellias are easy to grow. If you can grow other shrubs, you can grow Camellias. Just try what you like!

Thanks for responding. I went through the gallery and found several I just LOVE. I have to have Pink Perfection. Also love Nuccios Gem and Pearl, C. M. Wilson. Are these also easily found at Lowe's or Home Depot? If not, I may have to check every nursery in Columbus! Thanks again.

I think the main thing in getting a camellia to do well for you is to pick the correct site. Try to find a place that gets some filtered shade, i.e. high pines or other trees.

Try to avoid morning sun in general and buy, at first, what is available locally. Look at nurseries also. You could order something that you see in the gallery pictures, but there are so many beautiful ones that you will want more than one or two! Most camellias are about the same in the amount of care that they require.

our local lowe's has been selling some nice cultivars the past several years, usually during late summer and fall.
i found 'nuccio's gem' and 'nuccio's pearl' there.

Goatster,
I have been on something of a camellia obsession the last few months. I habitually shop around at different Lowes, Home Depots, and Pikes. If you're really into camellias, I would suggest this nursery called Ashe Simpson on Peachtree Industrial Hwy (it's inside the perimeter, across from a Lowes). Ashe Simpson has a huge selection of camellias (they have pink perfection, nuccio's pearl, and LOTS of others). They charge $30 for a 3 gallon pot. Also, the Home Depots have just received shipments of new camellias for the fall. I have seen c.m.wilson, kramer's supreme, marie bracey at most (I even found a dahlohnega, a yellow formal double, at the home depot off ga-400). The one gallon pots at Home Depot are only $7. The Home Depot on Ponce also had several chansonette (a wonderful pink formal double sasanqua).

I don't mean to be rude in this comment, but I really think it is tacky to suggest that it's a swell idea to keep a receipt from a big-box retailer and expect that business to refund one's purchase price for a camellia or any other ornamental plant. These merchants deal in huge volume and do not take care of the plants they sell. And Heaven only knows where those plants originate, cheap though they are.

Jared, Lowes and Home Depot offer a one year guarantee on all plants. You just have to have your receipt and the dead plant. I have only returned two plants in all my years of gardening and one was a tree that I believe had root rot at the time of purchase.
If the companies are promoting this guarantee, how is that tacky? It's just one more promotional gimmick to make you buy at their store and not the nursery down the road.

Obviously, there are people who abuse the system as in all things.
I highly doubt that it is loss leader advertising either.
They are thriled that you buy plants there with the idea that if the plants belly up you can return them. Most plants are tough AND if you go to the effort of buying, planting, etc., than you will probably take half way decent care of them and they will live. And if they don't llive, will you still have the receipt? Probably not.

The same reason rebates are so popular with manufacturers, most people don't redeem them!

Sasanqua camelias are the easiest to grow as they can take just about any exposure from shade to full sun. Sasanquas bloom in the fall, depending on the variety, anywhere from right now until Christmas (try the 'Yuletide', as it's name implies, it will bloom around Christmas, it is a red single). Camelia japonica is the spring blooming type and is a little more fussy as to location, prefering morning sun and afternoon shade with regular moisture.

Thanks so much for the suggestion on the Yuletide. I looked it up and it is BEAUTIFUL. Is the Sasanqua camellias the ones that bloom all at once then are done or do they bloom over a longer period. Either way, Yuletide is on my list!