Alys Fowler: This plant is hellbent on bringing all the bees to your yard | Gardening advice
Alys Fowler's gardening columnGardening advice This article is more than 8 years oldAlys Fowler: ‘This plant is hellbent on bringing all the bees to your yard’
This article is more than 8 years oldPlant it in a front garden or by the back door: however delicious the scent, you’re probably not going to trudge to the far end of the garden in the thick of winter just for a sniff
The Guardian’s product and service reviews are independent and are in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative. We will earn a commission from the retailer if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.
If you make a winter honeysuckle (Lonicera x purpusii) happy, it dusts itself in creamy-white, highly fragrant flowers. Like many winter-flowering species, its scent is so strong that it carries for some distance – I’ve often found myself, nose up in the air, like a cartoon character, wandering around streets and into parks trying to pinpoint that heady, sweet fragrance. It’s not there to please you, however, but to guide in pollinators still on the wing. To win the competition game in winter, flowers need to be perfumed with the sort of scent that travels and lingers – which is why, once they weigh up the rewards of scent versus showiness, nearly all winter-flowering plants choose scent: robust, small flowers can withstand the weather better than big, blowsy ones.
Left to its own devices, winter honeysuckle grows into a handsome shrub, densely branched and rounded. It can be coaxed to hug a wall or fence, and although initially it may need tying in, eventually the stems will twine. The best cultivar is ‘Winter Beauty’, which has clusters of cream flowers with prominent, yellow anthers. It’s a tough thing, as happy in an exposed site as in a sheltered one, and it’s not fussy which way it faces, provided it has some sun. It also makes a lovely cut flower, so if the weather outside is too much, bring some indoors. Sweetest honeysuckle (L. fragrantissima) is slightly more tidy and compact.
The award for the best winter scent, however, has to go to wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox). In fact, this plant is so hell-bent on bringing all the bees to your yard that it flowers on bare stems, so there’s no mistaking what to head for. The flowers start in December and continue into February. They are small, yellow and waxy, tough little things that can take the wet and wind, and have a delicious, spicy scent. Wintersweet likes sun and well-drained soil, and will do well against a wall. But it is shy to flower, and it can be several years before it does its thing. Plant it in a front garden or by the back door, where you’ll bother to stop, because however delicious the scent, you’re probably not going to trudge to the far end of the garden in the thick of winter just for a sniff. There are two commonly sold types: ‘Luteus’ has sulphur-yellow, cup-shaped flowers, and ‘Grandiflorus’ has slightly larger ones that turn outwards to reveal deep purple centres.
Winter-flowering plants have one major drawback: they are exceptionally dull in summer – just a mass of green leaves and little else. The best way around this is to wrap them in a feather boa. For example, they make an excellent frame for summer-flowering clematis: for early summer, downy clematis (C. macropetala) needs little pruning, or try a late-flowering herbaceous type that can be cut back just before the shrubs come into flower in early winter. Or send some wilder-looking sweet peas or nasturtiums to climb across. I’ve wound a cultivated blackberry into a fence-trained winter honeysuckle, to give me a little more seasonal interest.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaKSZm7KiusOsq7KklWR%2FcX2UaJuem19ng3DDyKernqpdqLCmutNmn6imla7Atq%2FKpZxmr5mjwaa%2B0rCcnqxdnK6zsMSnoKefXZa5ur%2BMn6awpJWn