One of the best shrubs I've ever grown here in Houston -- well foliated, evergreen, new foliage is red, fading to a slightly glossy dark green with a glaucus tinge, staying like that for a long time; Impervious to fungus, very thrip resistant, gets slight damage but leaves are thick so it does not affect the overall appearance of the shrub.. Mine is in some dappled afternoon shade... It puts out new dark red to purple flowers 2-3 inches across abundantly and continuously from late February to May, more slowly through high summer and again abundantly from October to Christmas. Does not look like a china or a tea much; but also it does not really look or behave like a modern hybrid. ..

i recently ordered two plants of sweet drift from amazon. They came rather sad looking about two months ago in late november, dried out with a few dessicated leaves and no buds. I planted them right away on two properties about three miles apart in houston tx. One is on the north side of a house in a spot which has no direct sun in winter at all; the other gets maybe an hour of morning sun at this time of year. Both will be in increasing sun through spring and pretty much full sun from may to august but really I expected nothing to happen before the sun hit them in april. However both leafed out beautifully right away turning into perfectly round green leafy shrubs and both got lots of buds. The one with a teeny bit of sun, which has some ground covering asiatic jasmine under it and is planted close to some other roses (thus less air circulation overall) has got mildew all over the top, and has fewer viable buds, but is still blooming. The one with no direct sun at all but more air circulation has zero mildew and is blooming quite well. Both have flowers much bigger and a much darker pink than I expected. The flowers are close to two inches across and seem to last a long time on the bush in the cool weather, days and days with hardly any fading. Note from one year later: what photos don't show (including my own) is that newly opened flowers are a warm orange-pink to coral color. This eventually fades to a more standard baby pink. Foliage is good year round and does not get much if any chili thrip damage.