Camellia

There's a garden I visit every February that has a wall of camellias, and every year I stand in front of Adolphe Audusson and have the same thought: how is this real? In the middle of winter, when the garden is at its most monochrome, this evergreen shrub produces the most perfect, the most impossibly perfect, semi-double flowers in a saturated blood-red with a boss of golden stamens at the centre.

The perfection is what gets me. Each flower looks like it was carved from wax and painted by hand. The petals are smooth, glossy, and arranged with a precision that puts most summer flowers to shame. Against the dark, leathery evergreen foliage, each bloom stands out like a jewel on velvet.

Camellias need acid soil — that's the catch. If you're on chalk or limestone, you'll need to grow them in pots of ericaceous compost. I grow Adolphe Audusson in a large terracotta pot by the back door, sheltered from the worst of the weather, and she rewards me every year from February into April.

The flowers are delicate despite their waxy appearance — frost will brown the petals overnight, which is why a sheltered spot matters. But when they're right, when you catch them on a still morning with the winter light hitting those red petals, there's nothing in the garden to touch them.

They're not really a cut flower. You can float a few heads in a bowl of water — the same trick as with hellebores — and the effect is stunning. A shallow black bowl, three perfect camellia heads floating face-up, a single candle. February's answer to luxury.