Garden Centre

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Winter Flowering Shrubs

Our wintersweet has just come into flower.

If you don’t know the plant, proper name Chimonanthus praecox (praecox meaning winter flowering, apparently) then you’re missing a treat – it has very strange flowers – outer petals of a yellow very much like that of winter jasmine, and inner ones with a maroon flecking or streaking to them. This is not their key feature, however. That is the scent, which is amazingly sweet and spicy (hence the common name of the plant) and very attractive to winter birds, which often perch in the branches.

I was a little worried about how the plant would cope with the heavy snow and frost, but it seems to have shaken off the bad weather quite comfortably. It did take five years to flower, which is about average, apparently, with the outer limit being seven years and the best you can hope for being three or four years and that might explain why it’s not such a popular garden plant as I think it deserves to be. Perhaps quick-fix gardeners can’t contemplate waiting seven years for something to settle in?

Anyway, it’s an easy thing to grow, even if it appears to be doing nothing much for all those years – it’s frost resistant, and will thrive in any reasonable, well-drained soil, even over chalk, which can’t be said of everything! It does its best in a sunny and sheltered spot and will flower earlier and better if you can offer it a spot against a south facing wall.

Labels: chimonanthus praecox, winter flowering shrubs, wintersweet

The All Seasons Gardener at 2:15 AM

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