Growing for Success | Blooms that beat the chill

We’ve just been notified that our first delivery of bare-rooted deciduous trees has been pushed back by another two weeks, as the plants are taking their time going dormant.

With the majority of our deciduous fruit trees now scheduled to arrive that same week, I decided to check on the expected arrival of our bare-rooted roses.

Yes, you probably guessed it — they were hoping to schedule them for the same week, too.

So now, they’ll send what they can this week to ease the pressure, but it will only include bush roses.

Standard roses are still a long way from going dormant, which is not unusual.

On the flip side, the topic I had planned to write about this week is now irrelevant — at least for a few weeks.

So instead, I took a stroll around the Garden Centre and picked out a few plants that are looking great right now, including some less common options that might be perfect for that empty spot in your garden.

Camellia japonica ‘Tinsie’ is a medium-height open shrub growing to around 2.5m high and 1m wide.

Its standout feature is its small anemone-style flowers, with bright red outer petals and a white contrasting centre.

It flowers from early winter to mid-spring and prefers a shaded position away from the hot summer sun.

Regular trimming will help keep it bushy, but ease off by February to allow flower buds to develop.

Camellia japonica ‘Night Rider’ is a smaller, compact shrub that produces loads of semi-double dark red-black flowers with glossy, rubbery-feeling petals.

Its new growth is a brilliant red before turning to glossy, deep green.

It’s slow-growing but can reach up to 2m tall when mature.

Brunfelsia latifolia ‘Sweet Petite’ is a compact form of the well-known ‘Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ plant.

It’s named for its flowers that open purple, fade to mauve and then white.

During the flowering season (spring to autumn), you’ll often see all three colours on the shrub at once.

An evergreen with lush green leaves that may darken in frost, it’s hardy, quick-growing and grows to about 1m tall and wide.

It does best in full sun to part shade.

Nandina domestica ‘Magical Lemon Lime’ is a tough, low-maintenance shrub with vibrant lemon-yellow new growth that matures to lime green.

It provides year-round colour and needs no pruning to maintain its tidy 1m x 1m shape.

Nandina ‘Sunset Boulevard’ is similar in shape and hardiness, but with foliage that shifts from green in spring and summer to fiery red in autumn.

Both varieties thrive in full sun to part shade and complement each other beautifully in the garden.

Camellia ‘Sweet Jane’ is a compact, upright camellia with masses of rose-pink buds that open into white blooms edged with soft pink.

This Victorian-bred hybrid can flower in waves for up to five months from autumn onwards.

In late spring and summer, it also puts on a show with coppery new growth.

As the plants mature, their form makes them ideal for hedging, screening, containers, or topiary.

The Abutilons, or Chinese Lanterns, are still blooming beautifully in the Garden Centre, even though their peak season is spring to late summer.

Named for their dainty lantern-like flowers, they’re frost-tender when young but bounce back quickly once established.

They come in a range of colours, with deep red being the most popular at our Garden Centre.

Both dwarf and tall varieties benefit from a hard prune in spring once frosts have passed.

They grow in full sun to part shade — even in heavy shade, though they’ll stretch towards the light.

This little tour just goes to show how many plants are still thriving in the nursery at this time of year.

And to think — this selection was made during a quick five-minute stroll.

Even though winter has officially begun, there’s still plenty of colour, variety and inspiration to be found in the Garden Centre.

Now is a great time to add another season of beauty to your garden’s display.