Chocolate sensation: Pieris Katsura
I occasionally find myself stopped in my tracks by a plant which I thought I had known for years, but suddenly see in a new light, as if for the first time. This happened to me the other day when I spotted a bryony (a rather uncommon handsome but rampageous native plant) scrambling over a shrub in one of our borders. As I disentangled the bryony, I realised that the shrub I was liberating from its embrace, normally a dull green, had transformed itself into a solid mound of gorgeous, glossy, chocolate-purple. This was Pieris Katsura in full, sumptuous new growth. I have seen this over many Springs, but had somehow failed to register how wonderful it is. It must have been the bryony that did it!
Colourful new growth is, of course, one of the main features of Pieris, brilliant red in Forest Flame, the most famous of them all. Forest Flame, though, put on its dazzling performance much earlier; and though there will be further flushes throughout summer and autumn, has begun to fade. Katsura sensationally extends this season into late May and early June.
Its other outstanding features are clusters of red flower buds in winter, opening to showy pink and white flowers in April. It is compact, forming a dense plant 3-4ft high in 10 years, thriving in humus-rich, lime-free soil, in sun or light shade. Like all Pieris, it makes an excellent container plant, in ericaceous (lime-free) compost.
I didn’t make it to Chelsea this year, but was pleased to hear that one of the stars of the Telegraph’s Best in Show award winning garden was one of my top perennials, Salvia ‘Caradonna’. This plant was a hit with us at Bridgemere as soon as it appeared a few years ago. What sets it apart from the many blue perennial Salvias available nowadays is its almost black, slender, upright stems, clad with deep green leaves, bearing dark purple flowers for weeks on end. The effect is stylish, elegant and classy. 
