Winter’s sweetest secret ...
The remarkable climber that adds a heady blast of summer to our greyest months
WINTER- flowering honeysuckle is a shrub that lies in plain sight for much of the year but rarely gets a second glance due to its fairly unremarkable, dull green, oval leaves. It’s only when temperatures start to drop that it makes its presence known for months on end with a flurry of amazing flowers.
Yet its moment of glory is not because the blooms are unusually shaped, brightly coloured or large – the tubular white flowers are only about ½ in long and need to be seen close up to be appreciated. No, it’s because these tiny flowers unleash a heady, sweet fragrance that travels a surprising distance.
As a matter of fact, the first time I came across Lonicera fragrantissima was after I caught a whiff of something wonderful in a swanky garden. With my nose to the air like an old-fashioned Bisto kid, I followed the scent across a large lawn to a bed packed with plants that had been selected for their winter interest.
At the back of the display was the source of the distinctive aroma; an upright, 6ft-tall, multi-stemmed shrub whose a l most leafless branches were smothered from top to bottom with clusters of creamy white flowers with extended yellow anthers. Apart from smelling great, the blooms were a magnet to bees.
The flowers of winter-flowering honeysuckle smell a bit like lemon meringue pie – sweet, with a hint of citrus – and are produced with abandon during mild spells from December to March. Their potency has provided the plant with a host of other common names, including sweetest honeysuckle and sweet-breath-of-spring.
Discovered in 1845, Lonicera fragrantissima is one of a number of plants that are known colloquially as shrubby honeysuckles. As this name implies, they are related to the summer-flowering, climbing types that are synonymous with traditional cottage gardens. How- ever, rather than producing long, twinning stems, these form bushy plants that range in height from 2ft to about 10ft. Some are deciduous, while others keep their leaves.
Winter- flowering ones tend to be deciduous or semi-evergreen, dropping their l eaves only i f the weather is particularly cold. They like moist but welldrained soil and are happy in sun or light shade. Ideally, choose a sheltered position.
Due to their fairly average foliage, they are not plants suitable as focal points or specimens. Tuck behind summer- flowering perennials and shrubs, or pop into a dedicated winter-interest border – avoid a clash of fragrances by ensuring you don’t use too many different shrubs with scented flowers. Evergreen types like well-drained soil and a spot in full sun or partial shade. They don’t have showy blooms but can be used as groundcover, in shrub borders and as hedging, depending on variety. Lonicera nitida ‘Baggessen’s Gold’ responds well to close clipping, making it perfect for crisp topiary shapes.
Unless grown as topiary o r hedging, e vergreen shrubby honeysuckles rarely need pruning. Keep winter-flowering varieties in shape by pruning in early spring, once flowering has finished. Remove dead or weedy growth and cut a few branches to the ground to prevent congestion.
Left to their own devices, winter-flowering honeysuckles can become congested and lose their vase shape. Rejuvenate neglected specimens by completely removing a third of branches each year. This will result in a flush of new shoots, which can be pruned if they extend beyond the desired shape.
I suddenly found myself sniffing the air like a Bisto kid