Although sweet floral fragrances are usually associated with spring and summer flowering plants, there are a goodly number of shrubs, bulbs and bedding plants that perfume the air all through winter.
Fragrant Winter Plants
Fragrant Winter Shrubs
Best known of all winter fragrant shrubs is probably Daphne Odora – the flowers may be pink or white – the foliage dark green or green with a silver edge. It should be planted in a semi-shaded area along with another excellent shrub, Sarrococca, which has spicy, small white blooms and glossy pointed leaves – a plant of neat growth habit. Fragrant viburnums are a mid-winter favorite – nurserymen will have a selection of varieties.
The Fragrance of lemon blossoms is most delightful in a winter garden – as is that of other citrus. For many months honeysuckle provides a favorite scent and holds great allure for hummingbirds. For a camera buff, what a picture with a humming bird drawing nectar from a garden flower. Insofar as fragrance-giving shrubs and vines are concerned there are so many possibilities that it is impossible to begin to list them in a brief space but a nursery undoubtedly will have a few favorites to recommend.
Fragrant Winter Flowers
Among the bulb flowers for adding perfume to a mid-winter garden are freesias and jonquils, also a certain type daffodil. Jonquils have long been a wintertime highlight and have an old fashioned charm all their own. Alyssum and stock are two bedding plants that enliven the garden with lovely colors and perfume. Alyssum blooms are white, violet and pink. Stocks are taller plants with a wide range of colors – glistening white through the pinks and rose to lavender and violet hues and even a soft yellow.
Flower scents are of many types and not all are pleasing to all persons, but few will be found to be unpleasant. Some of the herbs and scented geraniums maybe distasteful to some while enjoyed by others, is one example.
Fragrance adds so much to the pleasure derived from a garden that special effort should be made to insure a succession of’ sweet scented flowers throughout the growing season. It is quite impossible to fill a garden with scent-giving plants but one could always have a “nose-garden” close to the house so the area may be impregnated with agreeable fragrances. Some flowers give off their sweetness freely to the air – others release it most readily under a hot sun, or after rain, or in a warm room. The garden in general is most full of scents when the air is mild and somewhat damp.
Many flowers are fragrant only at night, like the evening stock, and the sweetness of many others is released with the coming of dusk. Nightscenting plants should be massed near bedroom windows.
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from Downtown Homestead http://downtownhomestead.com/fragrant-winter-shrubs
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