Add delicious winter scent
What could be more romantic than a garden filled with perfumes that stop you in your tracks, make you linger and draw you in closer? Delicious scent always adds to the atmosphere of a garden and there are a whole host of fabulously fragrant winter flowers to choose from. Plant them in sheltered spots where their aromas will hang in the air, particularly on days when the sun brings a hint of warmth to the garden, and gather them around doorways, paths and seating areas. The tiny, white, spindly flowers of the evergreen shrub sweet box (Sarcococca confusa) might not have the visual wow factor but they still pack a fragrant punch. Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’ is one of the most potent winterflowering plants – you’ll smell the wafts of perfume before you see it. Spidery witch hazel flowers offer an unusual citrusy, spicy fragrance. These elegant shrubs have an attractive vase-shaped structure and work best when planted on their own so that their attractive shape can be fully appreciated. Look out for the deep orange romantically named cultivar ‘Aphrodite’. Winter honeysuckles produce a mass of tiny, delicate white flowers with prominent yellow stamens on bare stems. Move in closer for a fragrance that will transport you to a summer garden. Then there’s the scented evergreen climber Clematis cirrhosa that will not only perfume the air but also help to create a sense of enclosure as its twisted twining stems scramble over trellis. There are scented bulbs too – snowdrop ‘S. Arnott’ is known for its honey-like perfume and
Iris unguicularis produces fragrant pale lilac flowers from December to spring.