Rhodoleia championii

A rare evergreen shrub or small tree from southern China and the neighboring subtropics, Rhodoleia championii is a connoisseur's plant, dramatic in bloom, refined in habit, and quietly excellent the year round. Thick, glossy, rounded leaves cloak the plant in deep green, and their softly glaucous, blue-gray undersides catch the light and every passing breeze, giving even the out-of-flower plant a handsome, layered presence.

In the cool season and into early spring, pendulous clusters of rose-pink to scarlet flowers hang from the leaf axils on short stalks, each bloom framed by whorls of soft, rounded bracts, more jewel than blossom. Hong Kong, where the plant is a treasured native, calls the shrub the King of Hanging Bells and the Hong Kong Rose. The flowers belong unmistakably to the witch-hazel family, the Hamamelidaceae, kin to fothergilla and parrotia, and in the wild the nectar-rich, hanging heads are pollinated chiefly by birds, by white-eyes and sunbirds working the blooms, with bumblebees and honeybees taking a lesser share.

Still uncommon in American gardens, Rhodoleia has real promise in the lower South, where the plant performs beautifully when treated much as a camellia would be: acidic, well-drained soil, light shade, and shelter from hard freezes. Our stock traces to the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, shared with Woodlanders by our longtime friend and plantsman Bob Byrnes of Trail Ridge Nursery, provenance that matters and performance that has proven itself in the Southeast.

Grow the Hong Kong rose as an evergreen specimen where the winter-into-spring bloom can be admired at close range, or train the pliable branches against a warm wall, a courtyard, or an espalier frame where the pendulous flowers can hang free. The dense, glossy, blue-backed foliage gives year-round structure among camellias, tea olive, and other broadleaf evergreens that share the taste for acid, well-drained ground. Give a sheltered spot out of hard freezes at the cold edge of the range, and site the plant where a close look rewards the curious, since the flowers are as strange and beautiful up close as they are showy from across the garden.