Walking round the garden last month, I was struck not only by the colour still present – the dahlias look better than they have looked all summer – but also the scents.  Winter can be a depressing and dull time for many I know, so for me a lovely fragrance is the best thing in the garden to lift my spirits. One of the best is Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’. For most of the year, she makes little impact, but she will grow in gentle shade and is no real trouble so that’s acceptable in my book.  Its long stems and upright but bushy habit make it perfect for birds’ nests.  Pruning is dead easy too: PLEASE don’t just trim the top every year.  If you do that you will end up with a horrid tangle of dead thin branches and it will eventually run out of steam.  After the flowers are done in late Spring, take out around 1 in 4 of the oldest stems completely with a sharp pair of secateurs, right down to the ground.  It will then throw up new stems, rejuvenating the shrub completely every few years.  She isn’t showy but earns her keep here from November to March with her rich pink flowers and gorgeous scent that reminds me of almonds.  A couple of sprigs will perfume a whole room when taken indoors.

 

There are other viburnums that smell good:  another is V. carlesii. This makes a more rounded, woody shrub again with pale pink flowers in Spring. It’s a slower grower, ours now stands around 150 cm tall after 20 odd years.  There are various cultivars though, so it’s always worth doing some research before you buy.  Don’t be fooled:  when you check the height and spread on the label in a garden centre it often says in the small print ‘height after 5 years’.  That may mean it will grow to 10 metres after 10 years – you have been warned!  I have a ‘dwarf’ conifer here at Charnwood that, after 30 years, is around 5 metres tall.  

 

For Christmas this year I’ve planted up some terracotta pots with early flowering bulbous iris. It’s a bit of a change from daffodils and tulips, not that they aren’t beautiful.  My current favourite iris is ‘George’. He flowers very early and is a rich shade of purple.  If you chose to put them in a pot you can plant them in the garden after they have finished flowering in a well drained, preferably sunny spot and they will come up every year.  The same applies to those little pots of spring bulbs you can buy now in garden centres.  Tete a Tete is the most common daffodil, and deservedly so.  Another less well-known dwarf daffodil is ‘Hawera’, one of my very favourites for her elegant pale yellow little flowers. She shows up a little later too, extending the daffodil show, always a good thing!

 

If you want to, and can afford to splash out, check out the Niwaki website. Peter bought me one of their small ‘Golden Spades’ for my birthday last month.  ‘Tis a beautiful thing, well balanced and cuts through the soil like butter. Not too heavy either which matters now I’m getting on a bit.  Its £36 so not cheap. So another suggestion is a trenching spade from a builders’ merchants which was really cheap and does a similar job but is shorter, less long lived and not nearly so elegant!  The Niwaki site has some great garden tools and other stuff, worth a browse on a dull winter day.

 

All the very best for the festive season.