Scent has an extraordinary power to uplift and bring pleasure. While we might focus primarily on shape, colour and other visual elements, scent is another layer to build into your planting scheme that will enhance the sensory enjoyment of your garden, so it is worth jotting down a few sweet-smelling stalwarts to take you through the year. Right now in late February, the intense perfume of Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’ hits me every time I step out of the front door, and for three weeks I have been snipping little flowering branches to put on the kitchen table. The scent is sweet and lemony, like an old fashioned eau de toilette, and I love it because it reminds me of my mum, who also has one outside her front door. I have it growing in my dahlia border, and soon other things will take over - but for now it is the star of the show.
Winter flowers tend to be small and delicate, but make up for their size with their powerful scent. Bees aren’t active in the winter, so these plants have evolved to produce highly potent scents to attract other pollinators such as flies, which are few and far between in winter. Sarcococca confusa is another great plant for winter scent, producing mounds of glossy dark leaves and tiny, intensely perfumed flowers in winter, followed by black berries. I don’t grow it in my own garden, although writing about it makes me think I ought to get a few plants for my shady border under the oak tree, as they tolerate dry shade. Witch hazels are also scented (subtle and spicy) but they don’t have the heady, enduring, hanging-in-the-air scents of the daphne or sarcococca.
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