The Sweet Smell of Winter…

A few years ago while wandering through WinterGarden in the Arboretum I was suddenly caught by the most wonderful fragrance wafting through the air! Looking all around me at first I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.  Nothing seemed to be in bloom and this was definitely a flower smell – rather vanilla like. 

I continued to look around until I found a group of large plants with teeny flowers all over them but hardly visible as most of the blooms sit on the lower side of each branch nearly completely hidden by the leaves.  The flowers are not even ½” across. 

The plant wasn’t marked so I made my way to the visitor center to see if they knew what it was.  They did.  It was Sarcococca – one of the earliest blooming winter plants.  And at this time of year it is just the thing to brighten the day as we try to keep hope that spring will eventually come. 

I planted one just outside my front door where I catch it’s fragrance as I come and go from the house.  It’s in full bloom now – the first blossoms showed up in late December.  I’ll have another couple of weeks of wonderful  blooms which eventually will be replaced by glossy, dark-purple-nearly-black berries.  Mine is a Sarcococca Confusa which is the same as the more common Sarcococca Ruscifolia except the berries on the Ruscifolia are red.  I specifically chose the black berries as I loved their glossiness.

There is a third variety, hookerana humilis which is a low-growing, spreading variety but it has the same lovely fragrant flowers as the others.