Scent in the Garden

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Sarcococca, Scent in the Garden, Snowdrop 'S. Arnott', snowdrops, Vibunum x bodnantense 'Dawn', Viburnum tinus 'Gwenllian', winter flowering honeysuckle

Scented narcissi

I didn’t inherit any fragrant plants when I took on my garden and I’ll admit scent hasn’t been given enough priority when I’ve been out plant buying. My tastes and ideas have changed from the fairly inexperienced gardener I was eight years ago and I’ve learnt a huge amount in that time, not just about plants but also my own tastes and the type of garden I want to create. Up until we moved here I had gardened mainly in pots to accommodate our frequent moves and the fact that we were renting. Container gardening was a brilliant way to assuage my need to grow, but it’s quite a different discipline to growing in soil and planting with a sense of permanence. Many of my ideas now are driven by my love of cutting plant material to bring indoors to fill vases, and scent is playing an increasing role in these choices. Along with Sue at Backlane Notebook I’m hoping that a ‘Scent in the Garden’ meme will encourage a focus on scented plants, will make me look at this extra dimension to my garden and will uncover some fantastically fragrant plants over the coming months.

For the February instalment of the ‘Scent in the Garden’ I have both Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ and Viburnum tinus flowering, as they have been since the end of November. The freezing temperatures haven’t been enough to discourage the winter-flowering honeysuckle from blooming. It has a tendency in very cold weather to retreat and withhold new flowers until the weather warms up. A few stems have provided a lovely addition to some stunning Cornish scented narcissi, which are a far superior Valentine’s Day gift than any red rose.

February scent

As for new appearances, there’s sarcococca, or winter box, which smells fabulous. It was just coming into flower in mid-January, but now it is in full bloom. It’s planted by the path which leads from the gate to the front door, so wafts of scent fill the air as you pass by. It’s a relatively new addition to the garden at just two years old and it is still quite small, so at the moment the air needs to be still and relatively warm for the fragrance to come to the attention of your nostrils, otherwise you need to bend down. A garden in the village has two sarcococca plants about a metre high which I covet. They are currently pumping out their heady perfume which means you can smell them well before they come into sight. One day that will be the scene in my own front garden.

In terms of scent, one of the biggest revelations for me in recent years has been the discovery that certain varieties of snowdrops are deliciously fragrant. Most of the snowdrops in my garden are the common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis. It’s a great variety – easy to come by, fairly inexpensive and it bulks up readily to form good-sized clumps, the one thing it lacks is scent. I had heard of snowdrops which smelt of honey, but it was only this year, when I attended a talk by the author and snowdrop connoisseur Naomi Slade, that I had the opportunity to sniff a selection of snowdrops. Naomi had brought with her a collection of snowdrops in pots to illustrate the different forms – those with short, strap-like leaves, flowers with layers of petals like a ballerina’s tutu and tall-stemmed blooms with large, nodding heads. As the pots were passed around I smelt each one and made a note of those with the surprisingly potent perfume. ‘S. Arnott’ was the variety which stood out and it immediately went to the top of my must-have plant list.

I probably shouldn’t be making plant purchases until we’re settled in a new garden and I was about to resist the temptation of the plant stand at a recent visit to Colesbourne (more of which in a later post) when Wellyman encouraged me to make a cheeky purchase. He can be quite a persuasive influence when it comes to plant nurseries, but, to be honest, it doesn’t take much to break down my resistance. So here is the latest addition to the scented garden. It’s an exquisite flower and hopefully one day, in the not too distant future, I’ll have enough of clumps of ‘S. Arnott’ so I can pick a few tiny nosegays of snowdrops to bring indoors.

Galanthus ‘S. Arnott’ (copyright Ian Curley)

If you’d like to join in with ‘Scent in the Garden’ just post about what’s perfuming the air in your garden/growing space and leave a comment here or at Sue’s blog Backlane Notebook with a link to your post.

Happy sniffing!

 

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Scent in the Garden

Tags

Christine Walkden, Great British Garden Revival, sarcoccocca, Scented plants, Toby Buckland, Viburnum bodnantense 'Dawn', Viburnum tinus 'Gwenllian', winter flowering honeysuckle

Winter-flowering honeysuckle

A few months ago Sue at the blog Backlane Notebook suggested we start a monthly ‘Scent in the Garden’ meme. Being a bit of a fragrant plant lover myself I thought it was a fantastic idea.

For centuries scent was the most important characteristic of a plant. In the days before bathrooms and a plethora of lotions and potions to make us and the world around us smell good, the fragrance of plants was an essential way to combat the many whiffs and pongs that would have been a constant onslaught to our olfactory organs. Nosegays – small posies of scented flowers and foliage – would have been pinned to your dress or coat or simply held under your nose in an attempt to mask whatever unpleasant aroma was in the vicinity. I just love that term ‘nosegay’ – in medieval Britain it meant an ornament to please the nose. Nowadays we have Glade plug-ins.

Now I certainly don’t want to return to the days when the contents of chamber pots were flung out of windows but I do love the idea of embracing fragrant plants and natural perfumes rather than the artificial chemical air fresheners we have today. But, ever since plant breeders started crossing varieties to create fancier flowers and supposedly ‘better’ plants scent has been the feature most likely to be lost in the process. Perhaps as we have become cleaner our interest in fragrant plants has waned. Certainly many shop-bought cut flowers are scentless, and for a period in the mid to late 20th century flower form and disease resistance were higher on the list of priorities for plant breeders, particularly when it came to that classic of all fragrant plants, the rose. Why you would want a rose with no scent is a mystery to me.

I have been enjoying the Great British Garden Revival series of programmes on TV and it has been fantastic to see scent playing a big part, with Toby Buckland championing scented plants and Christine Walkden campaigning for people to rediscover the carnation, a plant which has suffered more than most as a result of the global trade in flowers. So it seems like a great opportunity to seek out, to share and to celebrate all that is scented in our gardens. Sue and I hope you’ll join us each month throughout the coming year by posting about what’s filling your garden or allotment with fragrance. It doesn’t just have to be in your garden though, if you spot a deliciously perfumed plant whilst on your travels, you sniff out something in the hedgerows or you have an indoor plant filling your home with scent please feel free to share them too.

Viburnum tinus ‘Gwellian’

Winter might seem like an unlikely time of the year to be able to talk about scented plants but it’s surprising how many shrubs have evolved to flower at this time of year. It’s not easy attracting the small number of pollinating insects which might be flying around in winter, so to maximize their chances of grabbing the attention of a passing bee many winter flowering shrubs have incredible, intoxicating fragrances which will knock your socks off. One of my favourites is the winter-flowering honeysuckle. It’s a scruffy, unkempt plant for much of the year. It doesn’t have much structure other than looking like an unruly twiggy clump. Every year I debate whether to dig it out. Then it had a stay of execution when we started to think about moving as I didn’t want to have to replant the gaping hole it would leave behind. I’m also a bit sentimental about it. My winter honeysuckle was taken from a larger plant in the grounds of the college where I studied horticulture. A fellow student, Peter spotted a stem which had bent down and where it had touched the ground it had rooted. He dug it up and gave it to me. It’s all the more sentimental as Peter died a few years later.

Then, of course, every winter the plant does its thing and I’m smitten all over again. Tiny, delicate ivory flowers with strikingly yellow stamens appear along the woody stems, looking like miniature summer-flowering honeysuckle flowers. And the fragrance is just beautiful. I spent Sunday afternoon in the garden tidying up dying and soggy foliage to reveal the spring bulbs poking through and the honeysuckle perfume which hung in the air was such a treat.

Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’

You might say, ‘What’s the point of fragrant flowers in winter, it’s too cold, too wet or snowy to venture outdoors and appreciate them’, but a front garden filled with scented flowers will greet you every time your return home. Even a container planted with Christmas box (sarcoccocca) placed by your front door will raise the spirits on a January day. And, of course, you can always pick a few stems and bring them indoors to enjoy the perfume in the warmth.

My own January fragrant plant count includes Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’, Viburnum tinus ‘Gwenllian’, Sarcoccocca and the winter-flowering honeysuckle, which isn’t too bad but I would love more. In particular, I covet a wintersweet (Chimonanthes), although I’m dismayed to hear it can take up to eight years from planting to flowering. One of my quests is to fill my garden with as many scented plants as possible, so I’m hoping that if you’ll join in this meme I’ll be able to uncover lots of perfumed gems to add too my plant wish list.

If you’d like to join in with ‘Scent in the Garden’ just post about what’s perfuming the air in your garden/growing space and leave a comment here or at Sue’s blog Backlane Notebook with a link to your post.

Happy sniffing!

Plant of the Moment – Winter Flowering Honeysuckle

Tags

Colesbourne Park, RHS plant finder, snowdrops, winter flowering honeysuckle

Winter flowering honeysuckle

I love nature. Even on the darkest, dampest December day it can still produce something to make me smile, which is why winter flowering honeysuckle is my plant of the moment.

On the way to the shed today I noticed my winter flowering honeysuckle was indeed flowering. I got quite excited looking around the plant to see if there were any suitable branches to pick for the house.

I’ll admit as plants go it doesn’t have a lot going for it. Its leaves are a non-descript green and a plain oval shape. The plant itself grows into a fairly straggly shape and for most of the year it sits there contributing very little to the garden. But from December to March it produces flowers with the most amazing perfume. The flowers are small, like miniature honeysuckle blooms but they certainly pack a punch. The scent is heady like Philadelphus or citrus blossom and is very much welcome at this time of year.

My own plant was grown from a sucker that was taken from my local horticulture college. I was a student at the time, I don’t just randomly raid their grounds for plants I hasten to add. It has established well and this is the first year it has been big enough for me to pick branches from it.

There are 2 types of winter flowering honeysuckle – Lonicera fragrantissima and Lonicera x purpusii. Purpusii is a hybrid of fragrantissima. Both are deciduous or semi-evergreen depending on the weather and microclimate. Both grow to about 3 metres by 2 metres and both produce creamy white flowers with yellow anthers in winter and early spring. I’m not sure which one mine is but it doesn’t matter too much since they are so similar.

We visited Colesbourne Park in Gloucestershire in February to see its famous display of snowdrops, which were impressive but I was most taken by their collection of winter flowering honeysuckles that were dotted about the grounds. I haven’t seen so many in one place.

The gardens were packed with galanthophiles and gardeners desperate for their first signs of spring after such a long winter but I didn’t see anyone stop to smell the amazing winter honeysuckles. Their branches covered in tiny white flowers may not have looked as impressive as the snowdrops but they missed a real treat.

For nurseries stocking winter flowering honeysuckles take a look at the RHS plant finder.