Plant put in place before I initially arrived (10)
I believe the answer is:
poinsettia
'plant' is the definition.
The answer is an example.
'put in place before i initially arrived' is the wordplay.
'put' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'in place' becomes 'set' (I've seen this in another clue).
'before' becomes 'point' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'initially' suggests taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'arrived' is 'a'.
'set' put into 'point' is 'poinsett'.
'poinsett'+'i'+'a'='POINSETTIA'
(Other definitions for poinsettia that I've seen before include "American plant" , "Flower popular at Christmas" , "poisonous bush" , "bloom" , "House plant, popular at Christmas -- tiniest OAP (anag)" .)