Pieris Japonica

Pieris Japonica -- one of my all-time favorite evergreen shrubs

Although I can't get heathers go grow successfully, this member of the heath family (Ericacceae) thrives in my garden.  It prefers similar conditions to its rhododendron cousins including some shade from midday sun.  This one is outside our bedroom window, growing in a small bed between the house and the patio.  It is never watered but thrives, the top branches are at least 15' high, the lower branches are hung with multiple candelabras we light in the sumer months.  It must have been planted when the stone patio was installed in the late 1930s.  The pink buds look great with the dusting of snow.