Pieris
Forest Flame
“Spring's most dramatic foliage display. Vivid red new growth on a glossy evergreen shrub, plus lily-of-the-valley bells as a bonus. Acid soil only, but worth every bag of ericaceous compost.”
— ROSIE
Rosie's Take
Pieris 'Forest Flame' does something in spring that no other common garden shrub manages — it produces new leaves that are vivid, flaming red. Not a subtle flush of bronze. Not a gentle hint of colour. Properly, intensely, traffic-stoppingly red, as if someone has set fire to the tips of every branch. For two or three weeks in April, the new growth glows like embers against the dark, glossy, evergreen foliage behind it, and the effect is more striking than most flowers.
The colour progresses through a sequence as the leaves mature: brilliant red to salmon-pink to creamy-white to pale green to final dark glossy green. That transition, playing out across the whole shrub over several weeks, means the plant is never static — it's always moving through its palette. Catch it in the middle, when some shoots are red, some pink, some cream, and some green simultaneously, and it looks like a carefully planned watercolour exercise.
The actual flowers are lovely too, though they tend to get overlooked next to the foliage fireworks. Long, drooping panicles of small, white, urn-shaped bells appear in March and April — lily-of-the-valley on a shrub, essentially. They're subtly scented, and bees adore them. But let's be honest, you're buying this plant for the red new growth, and that's not something to feel guilty about.
It needs acid soil — like rhododendrons and camellias, it's an ericaceous plant and will yellow and die in lime. In a large pot with ericaceous compost, it's one of the most spectacular container plants for a semi-shaded spot. I grow mine near a white-flowering camellia, and the combination in April — red pieris new growth beside pristine white camellia blooms — is one of my favourite spring pairings. Simple, dramatic, and requiring absolutely no effort beyond watering.
✿ From the folklore cabinet
Pieris is named after the Pierides, the nine Muses of Greek mythology, which feels appropriate for a plant this theatrical. It's native to the mountain forests of East Asia — Japan, China, Taiwan — and the Himalayas. 'Forest Flame' was raised at Sunningdale Nurseries in Surrey in the 1940s, a cross between P. formosa var. forrestii and P. japonica, combining the spectacular red new growth of the Himalayan parent with the hardiness of the Japanese one. The fact that this extraordinary plant originated in a Surrey nursery during wartime is one of those quietly remarkable horticultural stories.
