Photography by Britt Willoughby Dyer, unless noted otherwise.
While winter can be a barren time for gardens, there are perennials that thrive best in the cold weather. Here are 7 of our favorite fragrant winter shrubs to add some cheer to your chilly garden.
The spurge laurels—or to give them their telltale Latin name, Daphne odora—lure you on to find the source of their sweet and spicy smell.
1. Daphne
Originally a native of China, the fragrant flowers were used to scent linen cupboards, much in the same way we might use lavender today.
2. Winter Sweet
The sherbet lemons of the winter garden: Lonicera x purpusii, mahonia, and sarcococca that make your mouth twitch and water with their zingy fragrance.
3. Winter Honeysuckle
Christmas box (Sarcococca confusa) behaves itself with its gracefully arching stems of neat evergreen leaves, cream flowers, and black berries.
4. Christmas Box
The mahonia has to be taken in hand to behave, otherwise all its acid yellow flowers will be waving over your head.
5. Mahonia
Lonicera fragrantissima ‘Winter Beauty’ can be difficult. Its wayward shape is hard to control, and the cut stems wither in a day or two.
6. Winter Beauty
Evergreen flowering Viburnum tinus also makes a great hedge.