Gardeners in temperate areas either endure winter, or defy it.
Those who endure it are sustained by color catalogs from seed, bulb, and plant nurseries; those who defy it resort to greenhouses or windowsills crowded with amaryllis, forced bulbs, and foliage plants.
For those of us in hibernal denial, however, there’s another outlet: find plants that actually bloom in winter.
Some of these misfits are well known: the Christmas rose (which rarely blooms at Christmas, and in any case is not a rose, but a hellebore, Helleborus niger) and the Lenten rose (Helleborus orientalis) are planted to provide winter bloom.
The bear-claw hellebore, H. foetidus, often displays its lime-green, maroon-edged blooms for us here in Zone 6 as early as February.
Snowdrops, early narcissi, and crocuses are usually up and in bloom well before the official end of winter.
I employ all these hardy performers, but I also grow a few larger, more spectacular winter bloomers that may not be as well known.
Camellia ‘Winter Star’First of these is the hardy camellia ‘Winter Star‘ from the famous breeding program initiated by Dr. William Ackerman of the USDA.
There are a number of these beauties available now in commerce, many of them identified by the “Winter” in their names.
The shrub itself is quite handsome, with glossy evergreen lanceolate leaves and prominent scaled flower buds, but the real show begins in late October, and lasted this year through December.
The entire 8-foot high plant is covered with flowers, real flowers: light pink with delicate petals and a central boss of gold stamens.
Listed as a single, Winter Star is better described as a semi-double, especially when it has few years of growth behind it.
The flowers don’t
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