It's all too easy to forget the power of scent at this time of year, something we might more usually associate with high summer and the heady scent of roses. But mid-winter can offer up some of the most seductive and powerful scents we could wish for in the garden. Here are three of my favourite.
Daphne bholua 'Jacqueline Postil' with its tubular, purplish-pink flowers has to be top of the list for fragrance. It can be slow growing and not completely hardy but is well worth trying in a mixed border. Plant it in light shade to full sun, ideally near a path where you can really enjoy the scent.
The shrubby honeysuckles (Lonicera x purpusii 'Winter Beauty' or Lonicera fragrantissima) are less fussy characters altogether. The sweetly scented, tubular flowers are cream to white with distinctive yellow anthers. Their relaxed growth habit means pruning really isn't required but does mean it's best planted towards the back of the border.
Finally, Viburnum x bodnantense 'Dawn' packs a punch with both colour and scent. Its clusters of fragrant, dark-pink flowers which fade to the palest shell-pink, are held on bare stems in mid to late winter. For me, it's the magic, of bare stems and pink snowballs of flowers which make this my favourite of the three. Planted in full sun to part shade, in fertile, well drained soil, it'll give years of pleasure at little or no hassle to the busy gardener.
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