BOX OF DELIGHTS
IT MAY NOT BE MUCH TO LOOK AT, BUT AT THIS TIME OF YEAR, CHRISTMAS BOX HAS A FRAGRANCE THAT’S OUT OF THIS WORLD, MAKING IT A WINTER GARDEN MUST-HAVE
SPECTACLE is not always everything in the garden. There is one little shrub that I’m very fond of at this time of the year – and it in no way deserves to be called spectacular. In fact, if you walked past it in my garden I doubt you would even notice it, except in the dead of winter.
For a start, it will only come up to your knees.
All right, if you are vertically challenged it might make it to your waistline, but no more.
It is evergreen, though, so it always looks smart and its leaves could well have been coated with varnish, so glossy is their surface.
Are you getting slightly interested? If I describe the flowers you might switch off again – they are creamy white whiskers held in tiny shuttlecock clusters up the stems.
They don’t really look much at all.
In fact, it will not be the colour, size or shape of the flowers that makes you turn your head – it will be the fragrance.
You see, the diminutive evergreen known as Christmas box is a plant that brings unparalleled fragrance to the winter garden.
There are other sweetly scented winter flowers, such as witch hazel, wintersweet and winterflowering honeysuckle to name but three, but you have to push your nose right into the flower to detect any scent.
Not so with Christmas box. The only disappointment is that it is seldom in bloom during the festive season, even in mild Decembers, but come January and February it will make you sigh for weeks on end.
I’m not exaggerating – the sweet perfume given off by the flowers really will stop you in your tracks, but often a couple of yards after you have passed the plant.
You will have to retrace your steps to discover the source of your olfactory pleasure and then I guarantee you the wow factor.
Not least because at the moment we do not expect our noses to be assailed by the sweet scents we associate with summer.
Its botanical name is sarcococca and you will find Sarcococca humilis, S. confusa and S. hookeriana ‘Digyna’ for sale in nurseries and garden centres.
They differ from one another in various ways but all are evergreen and possess the fragrant whiskery flowers that open for your delectation and delight in the middle of winter. You can plant where they will give body to a border without ever growing too large and they cope with almost any kind of soil.
Plant one that is in flower and you can have instant pleasure, or plant a youngster that is yet to bloom and look forward to fragrant future winters.
The sweet perfume given off will stop you in your tracks