Heaven-scent plot pleasers
16 17 20-21 28 35 Travel calendar:
Destinations for each month of the year.
Beyond the beach:
Exploring the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
Venice by design:
We visit the beautiful city for an architecture Biennale.
REGULARS 9 10 11
Deals, Five Things Weekender Expat Tales, Ask the Expert Check in Smugshot Puzzles
22-23 Young adult fiction:
The genre’s booming, and young readers are enjoying far grittier, ‘more truthful’ local stories.
24-25 Fab fun:
Eddy and Patsy ride again.
30-31 States of play:
Andrew Keoghan’s big time in the Big Apple.
REGULARS 26
Film and music reviews 27 Books Appointment Viewing Grant Smithies
Cover illustration:
123RF
When Dolly Parton was born, her dirt-poor daddy paid the midwife with a bag of oatmeal. As a child, her momma famously sewed a box of rags into a coat of many colours and as a teenager who couldn’t afford cosmetics, she wore ‘‘red pokeberries for lipstick, a burnt matchstick for eyeliner and honeysuckle for perfume’’.
Parton should thank her lucky stars she wasn’t born Downunder, because the pokeberry’s closest cousin here, inkweed, is noxious and toxic and Japanese honeysuckle is such a rampant thug that it is banned for sale by the New Zealand Pest Plant Accord. She could have gone bush to stain her lips with native kotukutuku berries, or dabbed her neck with menthol-scented mairehau leaves but, to be honest, our indigenous shrubs are rarely feted for their fragrance.
‘‘I like perfume and flowers,’’ said the Italian fashion designer Donnatella Versace, a woman who clearly also appreciates plastic surgery.
I like perfume and flowers too, especially in winter, when gardens inevitably look their worst yet smell their best. It makes sense, I suppose. If I was inclined to be a nudist in winter, you can rest assured I’d try to hide my goosebumped wobbly bits behind a pair of perfumed wrists, or a bunch of ‘Erlicheer’ narcissus.
Also known as the doubleflowered paperwhite, this earliest of early flowering daffodils has clusters of creamy flowers with a knockout perfume that belies the small size of the blooms. Like Oriental lilies, many people find the fragrance of ‘Erlicheer’ almost nauseously overpowering – I couldn’t stand to pick them when I was pregnant – so keep that in mind if you’re including stems in a get-well-soon bouquet.
Winter-flowering shrubs often manage to smell sensational and look shabby at the same time. Take witch hazel (Hamamelis), which sports spidery yellow flowers like lumps of chewed tobacco spat on its bare stems, or winter sweet (Chimonanthus), which has banal looking waxy yellow blooms that are only photogenic with a macro lens. Without their intoxicating scent, neither would get a look in.
Then there’s daphne, most gardeners’ first port of call for winter perfume. Even though its stems are too short to be useful in a vase, its fresh citrus scent rivals Joseph Parker for punch. In my garden, however, it can’t seem to decide whether to be evergreen or deciduous and, like a dog with mange, loses just enough of its leaves to look like it might be going to die. That’s in a good year. In a bad year, it does die.
Evergreen michelias, recently reclassified as magnolias through DNA testing, are similarly afflicted with partial alopecia, but who cares? These small trees sport fuzzy brown buds that burst into bloom from late winter and boast intense scent.
If you want a slender driveway hedge or privacy in an inner-city courtyard, consider the delicate pink Taranaki-bred beauty ‘Fairy Magnolia Blush’, ‘Mixed up Miss’, ‘Bubbles’ or Michelia yunnanensis ‘Velvet and Cream’ (now sold as Magnolia laevifolia).
I’ve just put in a grove of nine ‘Snow Dove’ magnolias (a New Zealand-raised hybrid of Michelia maudiae x Michelia doltsopa). Its white flowers are large and fragrant but, unfortunately, the petals are frost tender. No sooner had I put down my spade than Jack Frost groped them all with his icy fingers.
Which brings me to my new favourite winter-scented shrub, the frost-hardy, evergreen, compact fragrant tea olive, Osmanthus delavayi (its older sibling, Osmanthus fragrans, is a small tree). Though notoriously difficult for nurseries to propagate, Osmanthus delavayi is easy to grow if you can lay your hands on a plant. I say this with some authority because when I dropped our teenage babysitter home last weekend, I spied a stunning specimen by her deck. To be honest, it wasn’t hard to spot, given that it was the only plant in her parents’ front garden – but what a plant! A snowy, metre-high mound of sweetly scented tubular white bells, it was buzzing with honey bees. Naturally, I nicked a cutting.
Osmanthus delavayi has a fragrance to die for. Indeed, some witty plant breeder has named the best new selection ‘Pearly Gates’. It is in garden centres now.
If I was a nudist in winter, you can rest assured I'd try to hide my goosebumped wobbly bits behind a bunch of 'Erlicheer' narcissus.