Carol Klein on her favourite plants for winter scent
Forget the cold weather, my favourite plants for winter scent will transport you to another place...
Despite the appearance of snowdrops and hellebores, winter can be a bleak time. But though your visual sense won’t have such rich rewards as it will in summer and autumn, your sense of smell has plenty of treats. Perhaps we associate scent most with summer, sitting out on a balmy night surrounded by the heady fragrance of honeysuckle, or on a hot day enjoying the air filled with the perfume of roses.
In winter, scents are even more discernible and vital to the survival of flowers brave enough to bloom now to attract the few insect pollinators on the wing.
One of the first shrubs we planted when we first came to Glebe Cottage was Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’. It comes into its own during winter, its branches decorated with dense clusters of small, pink, intensely fragrant flowers – the sort of perfume that lures you back to take another sniff.
Unfazed by plummeting temperatures, it blooms on and off from October right through
‘Most winter-flowering shrubs have small flowers, as big blooms would be torn to shreds by gale force winds’
until spring. One of its parents,
Viburnum farreri, is just as fragrant, but even bigger. If you want to make more of any, the top 15cm (6in) of strong young shoots can be used to make hardwood cuttings.
Most winter-flowering shrubs have small flowers, as big sumptuous blooms would be torn to shreds by gale force winds. Since they’ve no large petals to wave around as flags to attract pollinating insects, they do it with scent.
The flowers of skimmia could never be described as ostentatious but the perfume they produce is positively exhilarating. For berries, you need to plant both female and male varieties. One male plant, ( Skimmia japonica ‘Rubella’ is the most common), will serve several females. Plant the little harem a few feet apart. The leaves of several skimmia are aromatic too, especially when crushed. The foliage of one, S. laureola
multinervia, is lavender-scented. Skimmia are small, neat shrubs and the Christmas box, Sarcococca hookeriana humilis, shares the same demeanour. Its tiny flowers are almost hidden among the glossy, dark-green leaves, but the scent of the male flowers carries for yards, wafting
over walls and fences. The female flowers are borne on the same shrub so even one plant will be enough to perfume the whole garden. If you’ve got enough room, you can allow the winter-flowering honeysuckles, Lonicera fragrantissima and L. standishii free reign. I made the mistake of planting one in the narrow bed just outside the cottage where it became too ungainly but made up for it by producing masses of pretty little flowers with an all-pervading perfume. Eventually, it had to move. We miss that perfume and I’m thinking of planting another better-behaved scented shrub in the same place!
Daphne bholua would be my first choice. I remember Roy Lancaster, my all-time plantsman hero, writing about a plant he has by his front door. I fell in love with his description of it and when I came face to face with the real thing, my feelings were borne out. In a cold garden, this semi-evergreen shrub might need the protection of a wall. Most daphnes have beautiful perfume, often at this most inhospitable time of year.
In my grandfather’s garden there was D. mezereum, its leafless branches crowded with deep pink-purple flowers with a glorious scent ( it used to be known as ‘paradise plant’), unexpectedly potent from such a tiny bush.
Of all winter scented shrubs, witch hazels are probably the most celebrated. So far we only have one – Hamamelis intermedia ‘Pallida’ with exquisite perfume.
Forget cold fingers and toes, the scents and perfumes of winter will inspire you and transport you to another place.