Winter fragrances: our top 10 for balcony and garden

The first thing we do when we are given flowers is to bring them to the face. An instinctive gesture that reveals our need to reawaken a sense – smell – now almost dormant. Bouquets from “industrial” crops don’t give us too much satisfaction from this point of view, but we can focus on balcony and garden plants that invest generously in perfume during the cold months, to compete for the few pollinators in circulation. Their essences are perceived clearly and strongly on days with a pungent air: seeing is believing. Below, ten samples of perfume for winter, in perfect combinations to create a sensory planter or flowerbed in different situations. We look for their photos on the Internet to see what the plant looks like and, above all, we immediately go to get drunk in the nursery.

In the flowerbed in the sun, calicanto and Algerian iris

The most famous of the winter perfumes is that of calicanto, Chimonanthus praecox ‘Luteus’, a large broad-leaved shrub with small yellow flowers with a purple heart that bloom on bare branches from Christmas to February. Their unmistakable scent, which mixes hints of cinnamon, cloves and honey, can be felt several meters away. Calicanth can become a small tree over the years, so we can grow it as an isolated plant or in a mixed hedge. In both cases, let’s prune it only after flowering. It loves sunny exposures and tolerates difficult soils very well (but be careful not to confuse it with witch hazel, which is similar in appearance but needs acidic soils). In a sunny flower bed in the south, at the foot of the calicanto we can cultivate an expanse of Algerian iris (Iris unguicularis), with sweet-scented blue or lavender winter corollas; it is a perfect bulbous even in pot, drought-proof.

Winter honeysuckle and Bodnant’s viburnum for the hedge

Less known than its summer-flowering climbing cousins, the winter honeysuckle is a large bush that produces a very fragrant flower in January and February, just as the name of the species suggests: Fragrant Lonicera. It is a semi-evergreen plant, which keeps its leaves if the winter is mild or loses them when it is cold. Its long and arched branches give it a disheveled appearance, perfect for natural-style hedges while the small, creamy-white flowers spread a scent with notes of jasmine, orange blossom and honey in the air; just bring a sprig into the house to fill a room with perfume. After flowering, we can decide to prune the honeysuckle if we need to bring it back into shape. Its red berries are very popular with birds. Fragrant Lonicera it needs sun, good soil and a large planter. For a mixed hedge, it can be combined with another shrub with the same needs and similar virtues, the Bodnant viburnum (Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’), which has clusters of pink winter flowers with an aroma of cloves and red fruits.

In a round vase, daphne and local narcissus

The most fragrant of all late winter flowers blooms on a small, rounded bush that grows slowly and can reach a meter in height and width in ten years: we are talking about daphne. The most common one in nurseries is Daphne smells ‘Aureomarginata’, evergreen, with yellow edged leaves and small pinkish-white flowers in February; it is an ideal plant for hilly areas, to be kept in the shade of deciduous trees, where it gets direct sun only in winter or in the morning, because it does not like sultry heat or excessively dry earth. Alternatively, let’s grow it on balconies facing east. Daphne does not like repotting, therefore it is advisable to plant it immediately in a large container, for example 50-60 cm in diameter, filled with a mixture of soil for flowering plants and garden earth in equal parts. Daphne smells, in fact it tolerates limestone well, while other varieties, such as the remontant Daphne x transatlantica ‘Eternal Fragrance’, require acidic potting soil. Together with the daphne, near the edges of the pot, we plant bulbs of Italian daffodils (Narcissus tazetta), with bouquets of white flowers with a very fragrant yellow centre, in bud as early as November.

For dry shade, pieris and maonia

The pieris brings together many virtues in a small bush: it is evergreen, tolerates sun, partial shade and shade, thrives well next to other plants and in any soil and survives long dry summers. In addition, its small white flowers, very fragrant in the central hours of the day, bloom from November to February and stand out against the glossy green of the leaves. Furthermore, the expanded or slightly drooping habit of its branches makes the Sarcococca ideal for filling “the voids” between the larger bushes. Three species commonly on sale, very similar to each other. Sarcoccocca confused And Sarcococca Hookeriana both have small glossy black berry-like fruits, but they are distinguished from each other because the second has more elongated and pointed leaves; Sarcoccocca ruscifolia, instead, it has ruby ​​red fruits. To create a high backdrop behind a bed of sarcococcas, we plant a Beale maonia, Mahonia bealei (now renamed Berberis bealei), an equally resistant species with a sculptural appearance, with very fragrant yellow flowers in February.

In the row of planters, the stick of St. Joseph and the viburnum

The stick of St. Joseph, Edgeworthia chrysantha, is covered with small white and yellow four-petalled flowers that bloom on the top of the bare branches in January and February (there is also a rare form with red flowers, ‘Red Dragon’) and spread a scent in the air that recalls gardenia. The shape of this small bush, rounded and with numerous well-structured stems, is very characteristic because in winter it resembles the crown of a bonsai or a branch of coral, while in summer it is covered with light green, slightly velvety leaves. The St. Joseph’s stick loves clearing exposures, where it is exposed to the sun only for a few hours a day, preferably in the morning. To bring out its beauty, let’s plant it in large planters of about 60 cm in length, alternating it with an evergreen bush with dark foliage such as viburnotino, Viburnum tinuswhich at the end of winter is covered with clusters of small white flowers with a honey scent followed by blue-tinged fruits, much loved by birds.