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If you’re like me and wander through your garden at this time of year, looking for signs of life, bulbs sprouting, or new growth on shrubs, scented plants can provide pleasant surprises.
Those with small gardens can reap the rewards from scented plants in pots, fragrant climbers climbing walls and trellises, or even fragrant specimens in windowsill boxes.
“Plants that bloom in the winter have a stronger scent because the smell of the plant can attract bees to the pollen. They have to work harder to attract less of it flying around,” says the horticulturist Tony HallHead of Botanic Gardens and Temperate Collections Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Gardensauthor of Gardening with Aromatic Plants.
“So you do find that winter-flowering aromatic plants have a stronger aroma than summer-flowering plants.”
Use containers
Hall says growing scented winter plants in pots is great for small gardens if soil space is limited or the area is mostly hard. You can move them closer to your patio door or window where you will be able to inhale their rich scent.
“You can do what’s called nesting, where you combine containers with different sizes, different heights, and different plants.
“If you’re planting a container just for winter interest and not specifically for the smell, you can just use peat-free all-purpose compost, but if you’re planting shrubs then you’ll need a soil compost like John Innes No 3.”
Winter containers should be well-drained, so place a clay pot on the bottom and raise it with your feet to prevent moisture from rising into the pot and protect it from frost.
He goes on to say that container shrubs are low maintenance.
“It’s just a matter of pruning plants in containers. They may stay in the container for four or five years and then need to be taken out and repotted or moved to a larger pot.”
vertical growth
“Even in the smallest garden, if you have beds, you can plant something to support the walls. Chimonanthus praecox is one of the most fragrant of all winter flowering plants and will grow well in containers if you use peat-free soil compost.
“If you have limited space, put it tight against the wall so it can grow up to two or three meters and take up no space at all, really.”
Wintersweet needs full sun and grows in a warm, sheltered position against a south-facing wall.
“The flowers are important because they appear on bare stems. They are mostly creamy white, but there is also a yellow variety called ‘Luteus’.”
Choose your size carefully
“If you have a small garden, there is no benefit in choosing a plant that grows to four or five meters in a pot because it will always struggle.
“Choose specimens between half a meter and 1.5 metres, and then they only need to be pruned once a year.”
Here Hall lists some of the best choices for scented plants for the winter garden.
Chimonanthus praecox
“This will fill an average-sized patio garden with fragrance. You might be able to smell them from 10 meters away. Even if there’s frost on the flowers, you can still smell them.”
These deciduous shrubs produce bowl-shaped, multi-petaled flowers on bare stems in January and February. “They smell very sweet, very intoxicating,” Hall said.
Sarcococcus
“It’s scented and evergreen, which is a plus because most winter-flowering plants tend to be deciduous. The white flowers are followed by shiny black berries.”
He adds that it may not need pruning for two to three years in the pot, depending on how big it is when you plant it.
daphne
“Daphne is always a popular choice, and you can choose deciduous or evergreen,” he says. “They come in a variety of colors, from pure white to pink and dark pink, depending on the variety you choose.
“Because they have a fairly upright growth habit, they tend to be suitable for small gardens, growing well in fairly small borders or containers.”
Edgeworthia chrysantha (paper shrub)
“This is a rather unusual plant, also highly fragrant, deciduous and slow growing. It has creamy yellow flowers. There is also a variety called ‘Red Dragon’ which is slower growing and has red flowers. They flower a little later, lasting into February.
“If you have a small garden, you should avoid Edgeworth grandiflora, which has larger flowers but grows faster.”
Viburnum
“There are many different viburnums and they are almost all scented, such as bodnantense, farreri, but there is one particular variety, Viburnum carlesii ‘Diana’, a deciduous type with a nice round shape that grows well in containers.
“The flowers bloom very late starting in March.”
spring witch hazel
In smaller gardens, he recommends growing this witch hazel, which produces smaller but more fragrant flowers than the larger, more showy intermediate hybrids, but still has the familiar sweet and spicy scent.
“They still come in a range of different colours, but are smaller in size so are better suited to smaller gardens.”
Supplement in small amounts
If you only have a window box, you can choose scented daffodils, such as paper white daffodils, or plant them among your shrubs. Daphne and viburnum plants also provide some fragrance in smaller pots.
Don’t overdo it
Hall warns that if used in excess, the odor can be overpowering.
“If you have a small garden and you have some daphne, cypress, wintersweet and viburnum, there’s almost too much scent because they all come out at the same time, slightly different scents, but all very powerful.”
Instead, choose other plant companions such as winter-flowering hellebores, rubella, flowerweeds and Siberian iris. Additionally, use groundcovers such as euonymus to enhance the scene.