Winter, you’ve never smelled so good

Winter, you’ve never smelled so good

According to a recent garden trends survey 49% of us use our gardens to feed/watch or to encourage wildlife. We spend around £250 million a year on feeding birds alone but whilst many of us step up our bird feeding habits through the winter it can be a tough time of year for our beleaguered winter-active pollinators, with natural food sources being generally, and literally, very thin on the ground. But that doesn’t have to be the case in our gardens. There are some fantastic winter flowering plants that can not only be a life saving food source for our pollinators, but can also add beauty, interest and often masses of scent to our winter gardens too.

In no particular order here are some of our scented winter favourites that are perfect for pollinators too:

Clematis ‘Jingle Bells’ flowers between January and March. An evergreen climber its citrus-scented flowers are creamy white and bell shaped. There are plenty of other winter-flowering, scented clematis too such as balearica or ‘Lansdowne Gem’.
Mahonia – an evergreen shrub with spiney green leaves and clusters of often heavily scented, usually yellow flowers in autumn through to spring – try ‘Sweet Winter’ or ‘Charity’
Daphnes are super-fragrant. Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’, for instance, is a much-used evergreen shrub with variegated green and yellow leaves. Its clusters of richly smelling purple buds to pink flowers appear January to March.
Sarcococca – also known as Christmas Box or Sweet Box because of its sweetly scented pure white flowers which appear from December through to March. An evergreen shrub perfect for shade.
Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’ – often looking like a very small tree this deciduous shrub produces dense clusters of richly fragrant dark pink flowers on its bare stems from November to March.
Chimonanthus praecox – its common name, wintersweet gives the game away. It produces small, sweetly scented yellow flowers with purple centres, on bare branches from December to February.
Hamamelis x intermedia also produces its flowers on bare branches in December through to February. Different varieties produce different flower colours from Pallida’s sulphur yellow to Diane’s coppery-red.
Winter honeysuckle such as Lonicera fragrantissima is a deciduous or semi-evergreen shrub that produces scented, creamy-white flowers in December through to March.
For scented perennials that pollinators adore, try Hellebores. Not all of them are scented but varieties such as ‘Miss Jekyll’s Scented’ or odorus are, and can produce flowers from December through to May. These nodding, often semi-evergreen perennials are a star of the winter border.
A variety of spring bulbs including aconite, crocus, daffodil, muscari, tulip and snowdrops all have scented varieties too and are all fabulous for pollinators. A mix of varieties can provide flowers and scent from February through to May and by adding scented cyclamen varieties too, this season can be extended all the way back to October.

Winter flowers tend to be less showy than their other-season counterparts but they do often pack a punch scent-wise since that is one of their main communication tools for attracting pollinators. So, including as many plants like these in your winter garden will pretty much guarantee a busy, pollinator-viewing winter experience. Though in terms of designing with scent try to choose plants whose scents complement each other rather than compete. Too many different scents can be overpowering but if all you’re likely to do is look at your winter garden through the windows of your home then competing scents aren’t going to be problematic. If you’re likely to be immersed in your winter garden then choosing plants whose scents complement each other or placing plants carefully when scents are likely to compete with each other, then becomes key.

Generally speaking, placing scented plants under windows, or next to doorways and gates and along pathways or the edges of patios, works wonderfully well for us because they allow us to engage more easily with their scent. But wherever they are placed, scented, winter-flowering plants can be life-savers for our winter-active pollinators.

Garden Design Quick Tip: Sound

Sound can often take a back seat in gardens as most people tend to favour elements for our other senses. Do you know what sounds are in your garden? There will no doubt be bird song but can you hear any others? Sit out one day for 10 or 15 minutes and make a note of all the different sounds you can hear. Are the sounds in your garden satisfactory? Are there any you want to disguise like a train or traffic in the distance? Are there any you want to hear more? Once you have the answers to those questions you can begin to alter the sounds to fit your personal needs.

There are four main ways to incorporate sound: surfaces in the garden, wildlife, water and plants. The use of different surfaces can create sounds that suit a particular area in your garden for example, gravel has a distinctive crunch, bark is soft and quiet and paving will have a low impact thud all of which will let garden creatures know you’re approaching! Increasing the sound of wildlife in the garden can be achieved by attracting more birds through using specific plants and installing a feeding station. Choosing plants that attract pollinating insects such as bees will increase the soft hum they create whilst busy at work. Frogs and toads create sounds by not only their croaking but also by hopping into water!

Water is a well known element for creating sounds in a garden but be sure of the kind of effect you would like. If you want to have a relaxing ambience you’ll be leaning towards a soft trickle or if you would like a refreshing and stimulating atmosphere then perhaps a rhythmic cascade of a series of waterfalls. Apart from attracting wildlife other plants like ornamental grasses will create rustling sounds when the wind pours through their leaves. Plants react differently to wind in different seasons; in the autumn for instance seed heads filled with seeds rattle as well as leaves swirling and rustling on a blustery day.

Three great plants that can be used to create sound in the garden are:

Bamboo (main image) particularly the Phyllostachys varieties e.g. Phyllostachys nigra has foliage that rustles in the wind but on a blustery day the canes knock together producing a hollow sound.
Nigella damascena also known as Love-in-a-mist with its blue flowers is quite popular in traditional cottage gardens, likes a well drained and sunny border, on a windy day its seed heads rattle.
Briza maxima known also as greater quaking grass stands around 60cm in height is an annual ornamental grass preferring full sun, will self seed around the garden and has nodding flowers that rustle in the wind.

Garden Design Quick Tip: Movement

Quite often we're asked the question ‘how can I make my garden more interesting’ and movement is one element of good garden design that often gets overlooked. It is just as important as all the other elements, not only does it create a feel, an ambience, but also added interest.

Movement doesn’t have to be dramatic or exciting it can be soft, understated and subtle and each person can have their own take on what movement in the garden means.

It can be incorporating moving water, for instance, which shimmers and sparkles in the light but also adds that refreshing trickling sound as it moves, creating a mood. The sound of movement often adds that extra layer that works and plays on the senses too - not only trickling water but rustling leaves, swishing grasses - as per our image - and other 'movement sounds' all play their part.

Navigating around a garden can also be what some people define movement to be, how to create journeys so you interact and move through the garden. Paths are great elements for this but care must be taken with the dimensions of them and their exact purpose, adding a path as an afterthought can often look out of place.

Incorporating plants that move gently in the breeze and give that extra vertical lift can really make them stand out from their more static counterparts. Ornamental grasses are great for adding movement as their habits are quite different and there are some that offer good all year round interest of both foliage and seed heads which last right into winter.