It's time you discovered Correas

They come from Down Under, but in the right conditions Australian fuchsias are perfectly happy growing here. And they offer months of winter colour, says Martyn Cox

- Martyn Cox

PLASTIC money, Google maps, electric drills, Kylie Minogue… many Aussie imports are now part of life in the UK. But what about their plants? You might imagine that anything grown Down Under would not take too kindly to the UK climate. Yet there is a group of shrubs from Australasia that can cope – even in winter. And producing stunning flowers for months on end, they deserve to be more widely grown.

Correas are a small tribe of evergreens that deliver a non-stop supply of small, pendent blooms from mid-autumn until mid-spring. Native to Australia and Tasmania, they vary enormously inhabit, from ground-hugging species to upright plants 10ft (3m) tall; others make waist-high, rounded bushes. The tubular or bell-shaped flowers of the wild species come in shades of red, orange, pink, white and greenish-yellow. However, breeding has led to an increased number of shades, with many plants now boasting attractive two-tone blooms that are displayed wonderfully against a foil of dark green leaves.

Vibrant winter blooms

It’s these dangling flowers that have given correa the common name of Australian fuchsia. There is a slight similarity, I guess, but they’re completely unrelated to fuchsias, which hail from South America. That said, correas are almost as colourful as their summer-flowering namesakes and more vibrant than other winter-blooming shrubs.

They were named in honour of the Portuguese botanist José Correia da Serra, who came to Britain in 1786 and became friends with Sir Joseph Banks, nominal director of Kew Gardens at the time. As botanist on board HMS Endeavour, the ship captained by James Cook, Banks was the first European to catalogue many Australian plants.