Carol Klein on the scented plants that shout spring
Sweet scent is a timely reminder that the winter garden is alive and well and revving up for spring
‘Have you noticed how most of us close our eyes when we’re smelling a flower?’
There’s still cold weather around; it feels as though it may be some time before buds start to green up, yet here and there throughout the garden, Mother Nature breathes a waft of spring, sending sweet perfume drifting through the still, cool air.
A week or two ago, we were filming at Bodnant Garden in North Wales and the winter garden there was packed with scent. The garden has only been in existence in its present form for a few years and opened to the public in 2012. It took a lot of gardeners a full two years to build and plant it and, like all good gardens, it’s beautifully maintained and fine-tuned constantly.
With the snow-capped peaks of Snowdonia in the distance, we spent a splendid plant-filled day. The experience was superb and the addition of scent made it extra special.
All the shrubs that provide scent have perfume that carries in the air – it needs to since the pollinating insects, for whom it’s a lure, are few and far between. And for us humans who are privileged enough to enjoy it incidentally, it’s a timely reminder that far from being a dead place, the winter garden is alive and revving up for spring.
Scent is the most evocative of all the senses. Have you noticed how most of us close our eyes when we’re smelling a flower? Scent travels straight to our memory without assessments and interpretation.
When I sniff the pinky-purple flowers of Daphne mezereum
thronged along its little branches I’m transported to my grandad’s garden 65 plus years ago. Everything about it returns, the place, the people and the plants.
Sometimes scent is more abstract; not tied down to a specific place but creating a mood. In the garden here at Glebe Cottage we’ve a large viburnum, and nobody is sure what sort it is. When it was planted it grew and grew and made copious leafage. Then, a few years ago, it flowered.
Its flowers are pretty, small and in loose bunches held close to the branches. They’re creamy-white with a touch of pink, but you hardly notice what they look like, so overcome are you by its sweet fragrance. We’ll have to wait for the summer to enjoy it once again, though if I close my eyes I can recall it.
Some of the subjects donating their scent at the moment flower on bare branches. Hamamelis
mollis with their spidery flowers in palest lemon, deep yellow and glowing amber are popular shrubs and easy to grow.
They dislike thin, chalky soils but otherwise are fairly tolerant. Later their large, round leaves will take over, fairly inconspicuous until the autumn when, in many varieties, they turn to rich yellows and russets.
Most of us associate honeysuckle with the summer but Lonicera fragrantissima, Lonicera standishii and the hybrids between them produce their small creamy-white flowers through the winter.
Many evergreen shrubs bring perfume to the early spring scene. Viburnum tinus and some forms of Daphne bholua, Mahonia japonica with its racemes of yellow flowers redolent of lily-of-the-valley, scent the cool air with perfume far more impactful than the size of their flowers would suggest, adding a whole new dimension to the beauty of passing winter and prevailing spring.