What do you mean by "three friends in a cold year"?

Three friends in cold years refer to pine trees, bamboo and plum blossoms. Pine and bamboo do not wither in winter, plum blossoms are cold-resistant and open in early spring, hence the name.

China's traditional morality is that pines, bamboos and plums will not die in winter, so they are called "three-year-old cold friends". Loose, full of vitality, evergreen and not old; Bamboo, open-minded, gentleman's way; Beautiful plum, proud snow welcomes frost.

Born in adversity and honored in the cold, he has always been a symbol of integrity and has a lofty literary status in the eyes of Chinese people.

Pine trees are wheel-shaped branches with long internodes, thin and flat branchlets or slightly bent downward, and slender needles in bundles. Its crown looks fluffy but not compact, and the word "loose" is an image description of its crown characteristics. So "pine" is a kind of tree with fluffy crown. Pine trees are strong and have a long life.

Extended data:

In the second year of Beiyuanfeng, Su Shi was demoted to Huanggang, and the place name was Dongpo, hence the name Dongpo Jushi. When he first arrived in Huangzhou, Su Dongpo lived a hard life away from relatives and friends.

Su Shi reclaimed a wasteland and planted cash crops such as rice, wheat, mulberry and jujube. Soon, he built a small house near the field and named it "Tang Xue". Because the environment is too dull, I planted pine, cypress, plum, bamboo and other flowers and trees in the yard as decoration.

One day, Xu Junyou, the magistrate of Huangzhou, visited him in Tang Xue. Seeing that his place was deserted, I asked him if it was too deserted. Su Dongpo pointed to the flowers and trees outside the window and smiled: "Wind and spring are two kinds of music, and pine and bamboo are three friends." Indeed, as long as you are open-minded, the wind whimpers and the spring gurgles, it is also two beautiful music; Evergreen pine and cypress, tall and straight bamboo and proud notice are all old friends who accompany the severe winter.