Camellias are more expensive if you compare their price/size against other plants's price/size. They grow slowly so it takes a while to get them large enough to sell. As a result, you see few large ones advertised for sale. I think the largest one I bought was 4' or so many years ago at HD. Call around to see if anyone stocks them as this is a time of the year when nurseries have few. If you live in the SE, there are some nurseries that specialize in camellias but to get a large specimen you may need to drive to get it as mail ordering would be very expensive. The one that you saved will probably come back. Some people have cut them a few inches from the ground and they return. Because the roots were not damaged, it should recover; for some varieties though, it take many years or decades to get back to 7'.

Thanks. I called our garden center and they said easily $150 each, maybe $200 for that size. They had some on the lot in that range if we wanted to look (going today), but said early fall would have a better selection.

I have to negotiate some extra material and stuff with the contractor, so that will help. We'll likely try to save the one and buy another one of smaller size so the damaged and new one will grow together.

Fall is when everyone has a good selection. Another problem with buying now is that, except for extremely late bloomers, you will have to choose a plant by seeing pictures of blooms whose color may or may not be correct. So make sure you like the blooms' shade of color and look at multiple pictures of the same plant from different sources. I picked one plant once whose late bloom's color I liked and when it bloomed again the following season, the color was way different.

Anthony, I am in zone 6 and I had a 6 foot one about 9 years old, nearly killed to the ground in our severe winter of 2003/4. I kept scraping the bark further down and further down looking for any green under the bark. I had to go down to about 8 inches from the ground at the main stem about and inch and a half in diameter. I cut most of it off, little by little but as I started at the top, I knew that wood was dead, so I cut a little more, etc. Anyway. having left only a foot high stump, I waited. Finally, around mid-June, there was the tiniest green thing on one side. Eventually, it grew and by the end of the growing season it was almost two feet high and branched some too. The following year it got to over 4 feet, and the year after, it grew another foot and filled in a lot, and had about a dozen flowers. Today it's over 7 feet and as wide, and has at least 250 blooms a year! So, don't give up on the one that's left. Give it some more time. It might surprise you!