Usually I've been cutting camellias for the house for weeks now, tonight the buds are still furled tight and brown - most are dead and desiccated.  

In contrast, thanks to the mild wet English winter the other side of the pond they were the best in recent memory and were in full bloom  last month.  I still crave one I saw blooming at the Garden House in Devon.  

Of course it was probably the only shrub in the garden not named and the cultivar name they gave me did not match its exquisite flower.  It was planted next to a pink flowering Pieris japonica, a stunning combination.

The Facts
Family: Theaceae
Genus: Camellia 
Species: japonica 
Common Name: Japanese Camellia
Area of Origin: Japan
Characteristics:  Alternate, simple, evergreen, ovate leaves, 2" - 4" long with a firm leathery almost plastic texture.  The flowers are perfect, mainly non-fragrant, solitary and come in white, pink, rose, red and every conceivable combination included variegated.  Their biggest enemy is the cold which turns the flowers to brown mush -- they're exquisitely beautiful when not adulterated by the weather.  The bushes themselves form a dense pyramid of lustrous dark green foliage, some cultivars are more graceful in form than others but on the whole they form a stiff, formal splodge of green. 
Hardiness: USDA Zones 7 to 9 (though we're 6, hence the very sheltered position).
Cultivation needs: They transplant easily from containers but I would caution against planting in the fall.  The first year we moved here I excitedly planted half a dozen and lost all of them that first winter. They seem to do much better when planted in the spring.  They prefer moist, acid, well-drained soils with high organic content.  It's advisable to mulch as the roots are shallow, they should be sited in partial shade as too much sun or shade affects the flowering -- which is really the only reason you'd plant them.  Prune after flowering.  It's important to choose cultivars carefully and pick one that is hardy in your area.
Typical Pests, Diseases, associated problems: Spot disease on leaves, black mold on leaves and stem, leaf gall, flower blight, leaf cankers, tea scale, mites, cut-worm, mealy bugs, weavils, thrips, numerous other insects, chlorosis, sunburn, oedema, physiological disorders including bud drop .... I'm glad I didn't read the list before planting.
Propagation Method: Seed requires no pretreatment if taken from the capsules and planted immediately.  If allowed to dry out they need to be covered in hot water and allowed to imbibe for 24 hours before being planted in seed flats.  Cuttings are best collected from May to September and in the fall.  Also good grafted and air-layered.

Flowering now, almost a month later than usual.  I fell in love with this shrub at Winterthur where Dupont planted a long walk of corylopsis or fragrant winterhazel underplanted with helleborus.  More subtle than the yellow of forsythia, the fragrant flowers glow in spring sunshine and are complemented wonderfully by the smokey purple hellebores. 

The Facts
Family: Hamamelidaceae
Genus: Corylopsis Species: glabrescens Common Name: Fragrant Winterhazel
Area of Origin: Japan
Characteristics:  Another large multi-stemmed deciduous spring flowering woody shrub (usually 8' - 15' tall with a similar spread) which is somewhat flat-topped, rounded.  Simple, ovate, alternate leaves are 2" - 4" long and have bristle-like teeth a wonderful chartreuse color in spring turning dark green.  Fall color varies from yellow-green to clear gold.  The flowers are perfect, pale yellow and fragrant, borne in 1" - 1 1/2" long pendulous racemes and flower from March - April before the leaves. 
Hardiness: USDA Zones 5 to 8.
Cultivation needs: Easy to grow, prefers full sun to light shade, ours is at the edge of the woods and in summer months is in fairly deep shade.  Likes moist, acid, preferably well-drained soil that has been amended with peat moss or leaf mold.  It's a great plant for early spring color and fragrance and can be successfully integrated into shrub borders.  It's best planted in front of an evergreen background so the flowers really pop.
Typical Pests, Diseases, associated problems: Like most members of the family it is free from significant problems.
Propagation Method: Seeds are difficult and require a 5 month/3 month warm/cold period so well beyond my patience.  Softwood cuttings root easily and can be gathered throughout June, July and August with a 90% success rate when dipped in rooting hormone.  However, Dirr notes that the cuttings are resistant to moving and should go through a dormancy cycle before transplanting.  

A native shrub that has naturalized throughout our woods.  We are constantly digging up spicebushes from the woods edge as they threaten to take over the garden -- initially we tried to move them but they are notoriously difficult to transplant because of their coarsely fibrous root system and are very slow to reestablish. 

This time of year they are in their glory, a wonderful chartreuse haze that brightens the woodland understory.

Family: Lauraceae
Genus: Lindera Species: benzoin Common Name: Spicebush
Area of Origin: Maine to Ontario and Kansas, sought to Florida and Texas
Characteristics:  Alternate, simple, oblong-obovate leaves, 3" - 5" wide, light green above, pale underneath.  The flowers are dioecious, yellow and tiny, appearing late March to early April before the leaves.  Not overwhelming to look at but fabulous en masse.  The fruit is an oval drupe, about 1/2" long and scarlet but is seldom seen since it is showy only after the leaves have fallen.    The shrub grows 6' - 12' tall with a similar spread, although the national champion in the Jefferson National Forest in VA is 20' x 20'.  It's a rounded shrub in outline, rather loose and open in the wilderness of our woods, supposedly full and dense in full sun.  The leaves turn a wonderful golden yellow in the fall. 
Hardiness: USDA Zones 4 to 9 
Cultivation needs: Best in moist, well-drained soils, full sun or shade, can cope with dry soil.
Typical Pests, Diseases, associated problems: None to speak of.
Propagation Method: Seed needs to be stratified, cuttings will root but percentages not high.

I first encountered Daphne odora at The Garden House in Devon 14 years ago, when a wonderful fragrance wafted across the garden.  I traced it to this compact gloriously flowering shrub that I HAD to have.  I bought a plant on the spot from the garden's small shop and carried it through Devon and back to Cambridgeshire where I kept it in a pot and then gave it to my mother-in-law when we moved to America. 


It was one of the first shrubs I bought when we moved to Pennsylvania.  I have it in the shrub border by the kitchen window where I can breathe it's fragrance deeply when I venture out the mudroom door and can open the kitchen window and fill the room with scent.  

I was back at the Garden house this March and saw no trace of the original shrub I fell in love with but in their garden shop they had a fantastic new cultivar, Daphne odora Rebeca which is an improvement on the most popular variegated daphne 'Aureomarginata'.  Plain daphnes with their celestial scent and colourful flower clusters in March/April are an invaluable plant.  Those with variegated foliage I think are one of the finest of all garden shrubs and Rebecca takes it to another level with the flow colour, fragrance and a much broader yellow edge to the leaf so that the foliage colour really makes an impact and should bring colour to the garden until the end of fall.  Discovered in Devon in 1989 by nurseryman Steven Watson it became available commercially in the UK a few years ago but I cannot find it for sale here as yet.

The Facts
Family: Thymelaeaceae
Genus: Daphne Species: odora Common Name: Winter or Fragrant Daphne
Area of Origin: China
Characteristics:  A densely branched, mounded evergreen shrub that reaches 4' (6') in height and width.  Alternate, simple, evergreen, leathery, elliptic-oblong leaves.  The fragrant, rosy pale pink/white flowers are borne in 1" diameter, terminal heads with up to 10 florets during February - March.  They last a long time and the fragrance is wonderful.  Fruits are supposedly red but I've never seen one.  It performs well in shade and is not meant to be as finicky about soil as other Daphne species.  Dirr says "What a wonderful plant!  Temperamental, trying, but worth all the attention."
Hardiness: USDA Zones 7 to 9 (though we're 6, hence the very sheltered position).
Cultivation needs: Temperamental, reportedly short lived, prefers part shade. They dislike disturbance and once planted should be left there.  Sometimes they die for no apparent reason, very fastidious about culture, overly wet soil appears to doom them.  Still a plant of the first order that is absolutely stunning in flower
Typical Pests, Diseases, associated problems: leaf spots, crown rot, twig blight, canker, viruses, aphids, mealybug and scale.
Propagation Method: Dirr used to think propogation was as "easy as cutting warm butter" but now claims to have varied success.  Timing seems to be important when gathering cuttings, covered frame and shade cloth etc.  To the nursery I go.

I have sought this magnolia for years!  My favourite of all the magnolias in the Barnes foundation, this gorgeous cultivar was  derived from a M. sprengeri seedling from the Caerhays Estate in the UK that was planted in Savill Gardens in 1958 and introduced to the public in 1982. It features deep reddish-purple buds that open to bright rose-pink flowers. 

The Facts
Family: Magnoliaceae
Genus: Magnolia
Species: M. sprengeri
Common Name: Magnolia
Area of Origin: China
Characteristics:  It is a small deciduous tree, growing to 40'  in height by 24' wide. with pale grayish brown to blackish brown, exfoliating bark. Young twigs are pale yellowish brown. The dark green leaves are obovate, 4"-7" long and 2"-4" broad. Fragrant flowers appear before leaves, erect, cup-shaped, deep reddish-purple buds that open to breathtakingly beautiful flowers that are pale pink to bright rose-pink to 6" wide, with 12-14 tepals that are white to rosy-red. It flowers late so usually escapes frost damage. The fruit is a cylindric aggregate of follicles around 7" long..
Hardiness: USDA Zones 6 
Cultivation needs: Prefers moist, humus rich, acidic well-drained soils.  Magnolia pruning should be carried out in midsummer when in full leaf
Typical Pests, Diseases, associated problems: May be affected by coral spot, grey mould, honey fungus, a virus, fungal leaf spot or iron deficiency and lime-induced chlorosis.  May be damaged by horse chestnut scale, capsid bug and snails.
Propagation Method: Propagate by softwood or greenwood cuttings in early summer or semi-hardwood cuttings in late summer to early winter

Now gloriously in bloom.  I spent a sunny hour pruning out dead wood and old seed pods on our patio tree.
The Facts
Family: Ericaceae
Genus: Pieris Species: japonica Common Name: Pieris
Area of Origin: Japan, China, Taiwan
Characteristics:  An excellent large specimen broadleaf evergreen that can work well in the shrub border, on mass or with other broadleaf evergreens.  Dirr claims it grows 9' - 12' tall with a 6' - 8' spread, and is slow growing, 4' - 6' in 5 to 8 years.  Our patio tree is a least 15' tall and 10 wide.  The leaves are alternate, simple, crenate-serrate and lustrous dark green above with lighter green beneath.  The new growth is a rich bronze and the new foliage on some of the new cultivars such as 'Mountain Fire' is spectacular.  The trunk is vertically fissured and attractive.  The flower buds form in the summer prior to flowering, the flowers themselves are perfect, weakly fragrant, white, urn-shaped borne in 3"-6" long and wide, pendulous, racemose panicles.  The dehiscent fruit capsules are messy and best removed after flowering.  
Hardiness: USDA Zones 5 to 8.
Cultivation needs: Easy to grow, likes moist, acid, well-drained soil and prefers full sun to partial shade which ours now has but until we cut the large oak from the center of the patio was in full shade.  According to Dirr it does not grow old without a struggle and needs to be sheltered from the wind.  There are loads of cultivars flooding the market now, compact, red new foliage, pink flowers, red flower buds etc etc.
Typical Pests, Diseases, associated problems: Leaf spots, die back, lace bugs -- this is a real menace in our neck of the woods.  The bugs suck the juices from the leaves and cause yellowing to browning of foliage.  Also Florida wax scale, two-spotted mite, nematodes.  Still worth the effort.
Propagation Method: Seed or cuttings which root easily.  That's if you want to wait years for a stick to grow.

Stachyurus praecox grows well in a mixed shrub border where it has shelter from cold, drying winds. At RHS Garden Hyde Hall it comes into flower in mid spring and complements other spring flowerers such as hellebores very well with its delicate, pendent yellow-green flowers. It can be found growing in the Hilltop Garden in a mixed border.

The Facts
Family: Stachyuraceae
Genus: Stachyurus

Common Name: Spiketail
Area of Origin: Himalayas and Japan
Characteristics:  A spreading, deciduous shrub, 3'-12' high by 10' wide that bears oval, mid-green leaves on arching, reddish-purple shoots. It is grown for is hanging spikes of tiny, bell-shaped, pale yellowish-green flowers that appear on bare stems in late winter and early spring. They look like yellow catkins, and are up to 10cm (4in) long.  It grows on the Japanese mountains, and its Japanese name Kibusi, comes from the fact that the seed is used for black dye. The plant offers some autumnal colour as the leaves turn a gold and reddish hue. It makes a lovely plant for a woodland garden, and is suitable in any shrub border. It can also be trained against a wall. Great underplanted with hellebores for an early spring display
This is a genus of about 10 species of deciduous or semi-evergreen shrubs, and occasionally small trees. They are native to woodlands and thickets in the Himalayas and East Asia. The genus name Stachyurus comes from the Greek, where stachys is a spike and oura is a tail, after the flowers. This is also the origin of the common name, spiketail.
Hardiness: USDA Zones 7 to 9 (though we're 6, hence the very sheltered position).
Cultivation needs:  It prefers to grow in moist but well-drained, humus-rich, fertile soil that is neutral to acid. It prefers partial shade but will tolerate full sun if it is kept reliably moist. Provide shelter from cold, drying winds.  Pruning is not essential, but if carried out it should be done after flowering, to maintain a healthy framework. Cut out flowered shoots to the base on mature plants. Hard frosts may damage the flower buds.
Typical Pests, Diseases, associated problems: It is generally not susceptible to pests and disease.
Propagation Method: Supposedly by cuttings but I haven't had much luck with this