Plants With Pizzazz

Every border needs plants that will wake up the garden with a vibrant mass of blooms.

- Adrienne Wild

Star performers for the spring garden are early flowering magnolias, which come into bloom before the leaves emerge. For the smaller garden, or even patio pots, look for the stylish Magnolia stellata, which has white or pink-flushed blooms with a radial pattern that gives them a star-like effect.

Camellias are also great crowd-pleasers at this time of year and produce beautiful blooms against a backdrop of glossy evergreen leaves.

The flower colours range from white to pink to red and you will find varieties that are semi-double, double and variegated with blooms up to 13cm across. Camellias must be grown in acid soil but will thrive in full sun, partial or even full shade. Dappled shade is preferable for white flowering forms.

Impressive sight

There’s no better eye-candy than the wonderful sight of rhododendrons and azaleas when planted en masse, but you’ll find that they will look just as impressive when grown individually as feature plants in a small garden or in pots on a patio.

Where space is limited you’ll appreciate the dwarf yakushimanum varieties, also known as yaks, which make sumptuous mounds of colour that always pack a punch. Yak varieties can also be found grafted on to stems to make small trees that are especially suitable for patio pots, which is good news if you have a limey soil that causes rhododendron leaves to sulk and turn yellow.