Winter planting

I posted last week about transplanting. Winter is also a great time to plant hardy trees and shrubs. The weather was mild this past weekend and I knew that heavy rain was on the way, so I wanted to get some new plants in the ground.

First, out with the old. It really kills me to discard a plant but this juniper is too big for this spot (it totally blocks and crowds the beautiful Japanese Maple behind it) and it keeps encroaching on the driveway. I decided to replace it with a low growing camellia.

This looks rather sad but the new camellia ('Chansonette') is in place. The Japanese Maple can now be seen and the balance of this planting area should be more pleasing to the eye once the camellia takes off. This still leaves a large hole on the left side so I'll be looking for something to put there. Low growing shrub under a dogwood tree - any suggestions?

Here is another new camellia that I bought - this one is "Showa No Sakae"

This is Osmanthus heterophyllus 'Gulftide' also known as "False Holly." Sweet Olive (Osmanthus fragrans) is my favorite fragrant plant in the garden but I had never seen this variety.

The leaves are totally different from the regular sweet olive and they do indeed look like holly. I'm excited about this shrub and I'm curious to see if it blooms as well as the Osmanthus fragrans.