Present danger

AS most of the garden settles into a state of restful melancholy, there are a few plants that are stirring themselves towards an unseasonal flamboyance.

- John Hoyland

In a shady area, the fat buds of a camellia are starting to reveal glimpses of bright-red petals. This teasing will continue as reliably as any Advent calendar until Christmas, when the whole shrub will be aglow with scarlet flowers. It never disappoints, even blooming on those rare occasions when we do have snow at Christmas.

The camellia was a gift and not something I would have chosen for myself. As do all unsolicited plants, it immediately made me anxious: I didn’t know where to plant it and was convinced that it would not like my thin, chalky soil. Happily, I was wrong. The shrub is now 8ft tall and in rude health. It arrived with no label, but a gardener who knows more about camellias than I ever will has confidently pronounced that it is a cultivar of Camellia x vernalis.

All camellias were once considered tender plants and, even long after nurseries realised that most were hardy in Britain, Camellia x vernalis often came with advice to protect it during cold weather. Mine has stood up to the very worst winters with no mollycoddling. Although I do not grow it myself, C. sasanqua is also starting to flower. There are many cultivars, all of which have paler, flimsier flowers than my plant. I have seen healthy specimens flowering in midwinter in a windswept, exposed Sussex garden.