Herbaceous borders, as we know them, are a relatively recent phenomenon. The term was defined by John Loudon in 1822, in his Encyclopaedia of Gardening. Two of the earliest examples in England, the birthplace of the classical herbaceous border, are at Byron's family home at Newstead in Nottinghamshire and at Arley Hall in Cheshire. Of Arley, Gertrude Jekyll wrote in 1904:
Throughout the length and breadth of England it would be hard to find borders of hardy flowers handsomer or in any way better than those at Arley. . . . It is easy to see . . . how happily united are formality and freedom.
(Some English Gardens)
Early frets and parterres The word ‘border’ derives from medieval times when beds were created around the edges of gardens. These beds were raised and edged with boards, no doubt the derivation of the term ‘boarder’ or border. In the seventeenth century, plants were grown not only in borders but also in ‘frets’, which were elaborate geometric border designs. Fruit trees and bushes were an important consideration in these gardens, grown so that they could easily be picked. The earliest border plants included fragrant flowers such as primroses, saxifrages, double rocket, wallflowers, double stocks and auriculas. The frets were planted with sweet-smelling lilies, hyacinths, peonies, tulips, iris, fritillaries, imposing crown imperials and daffodils.
Parterres also became popular in the seventeenth century. These were similar to frets, but the border designs were defined with narrow box edging. One of the finest parterres is to be found at Het Loo in Holland. Here, fragrant florists’ flowers – carnations, hyacinths, pinks and auriculas – were especially popular.
In the eighteenth century, selected flowers were highlighted as specimen plants. These were planted at intervals surrounded by bare soil to show them at their best. Indeed, the style was known as ‘sparse planting’. The effect was completely artificial or contrived and in no way exuberant or natural. Formality was the ideal. In the 1820s John Loudon held that:
Flowers in borders should always be planted in rows, or in some regular form . . . Every approach to irregularity, and a wild, confused, crowded, or natural-like appearance, must be avoided in gardens avowedly artificial.
(Tony Lord, Best Borders)
The Victorian influence The eighteenth century had also seen landscape-style gardens banish flowers to the walled garden, often set at some distance from the house. It was only towards the end of the century that flowers began to come back into vogue and were brought nearer to the home, where they could be appreciated for their aesthetic appeal. The first flower garden of this kind was created at Nuneham Park in Oxford, England, for the Earl of Harcourt. Here, flowers were used extensively in island beds and were planted en masse purely for effect. Borders had never been designed in such a relaxed or dense manner before and they paved the way for the Victorians’ love of colourful, informal bedding. They were, in many ways, the precursor of modern borders but differed from gardens today in that colour was juxtaposed rather indiscriminately. Under the Victorians, although a more naturalistic style of planting took place, unfortunately the overall effect was often cluttered or crude. They also relied on the help of a large number of staff to maintain the borders of mainly annual plants.
The Victorian style of design was modest in comparison to the Edwardian. They tended to plant excessively large clumps of a single species on such a grand scale that the subtle contrast of one group of plants with another was lost. The emphasis was purely on using bold colours to create a dramatic effect – the enjoyment of perfume and scented plants were virtually forgotten. The Edwardian age, according to Lady Ashbrook at Arley, was ‘the most dreadful period of gardening; the vulgarity was horrendous, all show and ostentation.’
Contemporary border design Fortunately, the excess of the Edwardian age and the questionable aesthetics of the Victorians were dramatically changed by two garden writers, Gertrude Jekyll and William Robinson. Under their influence, fragrant and structural plants were reinstated, as border designs took on greater subtlety and style.
Jekyll gardened with a view to creating beautiful ‘pictures’ and she encouraged planting with a single colour or a limited range of colours and plants. She also lived in a period when labour was plentiful, which is not the case today. One drawback of her designs was that she often used a limited number of her favourite plants (such as lilies and carnations). These plants bloomed for a few weeks only: in large gardens this was not a problem but it can be very restrictive in smaller city gardens and even country gardens today.
Claude Monet's garden in Giverny, France, with its displays of painterly colour.
Different types of border Borders generally run along a wall or hedge or mark the edge of a lawn. They were traditionally planted with hardy herbaceous perennials, but today any flowerbed in which there is variation in the planting heights is called a border. In the early nineteenth century, large island beds became popular to display species of plants to their best advantage. These beds, which sit in the middle of the garden, without a wall or hedge as a backing, allow air and light to circulate more freely around each group of plants and thus encourage healthy growth. Such beds are suitable for larger gardens and can also be grouped in twos, with a path dividing them.
Borders can also be mixed, combining herbaceous planting with shrubs and small trees for structure, together with tender perennials, annuals, biennials and bulbs. Shrubs and trees provide shaded areas in which to plant different species. Gertrude Jekyll used mixed borders, planting bulbs under trees and using shrubs to extend the flowering season.
Borders can also be composed almost entirely of shrubs, interplanted with bulbs and perennials for seasonal display. The famous American landscape architect Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), who travelled extensively throughout Europe, acknowledged the pre-eminence of English garden design at this time. For his home at Monticello in Virginia, he subsequently laid out a studied version of the jardin anglais with a serpentine walk, continuous adjacent mixed borders and an abundance of oval island beds. But the real impetus for the rise of the English-style garden, with its proliferation of colourful flower borders, came from the French designer Gabriel Thouin. The new fashion for formal promenades and island beds spread throughout France during the nineteenth century – even Josephine, wife of Napoleon, declared that she too was entitled to a jardin anglais at Malmaison. Claude Monet, who began the creation of his much painted gardens at Giverny in 1883, used paths bordered by wide mixed beds planted with masses of irises and old-fashioned fragrant favourites including peonies, honesty, sweet rocket and forget-me-nots.
Old favourites for the border that are extremely fragrant, include primroses, sweet rocket, wallflowers, tobacco plants, phlox and stock (particularly night-scented stock). Many of these plants were used for displaying in the early frets, but as border plants they are best allowed to grow naturalistically, planted in clumps or small groups.
Winter/spring Primroses and the rest of the great family of Primulaceae (including cowslips, primulas, polyanthus and auriculas) are some of the most obliging fragrant plants of the spring garden. Their flowering extends from late winter to late spring. They clump up and can be divided and thus continually increase themselves. Primula vulgaris, the common yellow primrose, has a sweet mossy scent and is found growing wild in many parts of Europe – modern hybrids provide a range of colour. In Elizabethan times, primulas or polyanthus were known as ‘jack-in-the green’. Primroses were very fashionable with the Victorians and were a favourite of Gertrude Jekyll:
All the scented flowers of the Primrose tribe are delightful – Primrose, Polyanthus, Auricula, Cowslip. The actual sweetness is most apparent in the Cowslip; in the Auricula it has a pungency, and at the same time a kind of veiled mystery. ...
(The Gardener's Essential Gertrude Jekyll)
Wallflowers (Erysimum cheiri) have been around for hundreds of years. They have a superb warmly pervasive, sweet-spicy scent and are easy to grow. Planted out in single colours for impact or mixed, their jewel-like colours have the rich beauty of Persian carpets or oriental spices. Wallflowers are used to produce an essential oil that is occasionally used in exotic perfumes.
Summer/autumn In high summer, herbaceous phlox are some of the most generously scented plants and are a mainstay of the summer border. Bob Flowerdew, well-known for his organic gardening methods, calls them a subtle mixture of ‘sweet and musty’. They come in swathes of colour ranging from pink to violet, white to purple, through to lilac, crimson or scarlet. White, mauve and pink phlox tend to have a stronger fragrance than the brighter colours. The border phlox (P. paniculata), which originated in the northeastern USA, is more common. It can grow up to 1.2m (4ft) high and is found in a range of colours. P. maculata, known also as wild sweet william, is very pretty with lilac-pink very sweetly fragrant flowers. Both species flower from mid-to-late summer. If they are dead-headed regularly, they will produce a second crop of blooms in a few weeks. Furthermore, the plants clump up and can be divided after three years, thus multiplying your stock. They require a rich soil and although they like the sun, they can thrive in light shade.
Phlox (Phlox paniculata)
Sweet rocket (Hesperis matronalis), otherwise known as damask violet or dame's violet, is highly fragrant and obligingly self-seeds, providing a mass of tall plants throughout the border, topped with pretty white, lilac or purple flowers. It is an old cottage-garden favourite and gives an air of softness to any scheme. Its delicious clove fragrance is particularly strong in the evening.
The tobacco plant (Nicotiana alata) comes from South America and is another headily perfumed border flower which can flower well into autumn. Although a perennial, it is best treated as a half-hardy annual. Its tubular flowers range from white through to purple and red. N. sylvestris boasts long white flower tubes, rather like a thin lily, and is visually more dramatic than N. alata, releasing an exotic fragrance in the evening. Both species like rich moist soil and grow equally well in sun or light shade.
Perhaps one of the finest fragrances of the summer border, though, comes from a plant that is almost ugly, grey and dull in the daytime yet comes into its glory in the evening when its lilac flowers open and pour out the sweetest of clove fragrances. This is the night-scented stock (Matthiola longipetala), a small straggly annual from Greece. It is best planted with other richly scented stocks that are more attractive in the day such as the sweetly fragrant Virginia stock (see below), the biennial Brompton stock (M. incana), which is hardy, or the ten-week and seven-week stocks, which are half-hardy annuals. These can range from white and rose through to lilac, apricot and yellow in colour. The white perennial form of M. incana lasts for years and is very fragrant. Virginia stock (Malcolmia maritima) carries white, rose, lilac and red flowers during the summer. These plants flower for up to two months at a time, and start blooming only a month after sowing, so it is possible to have a long flowering season by sowing seed successionally. Of the different varieties of stock, Francis Bacon wrote in his seventeenth-century Of Gardens that they have a penetrating clove scent which ‘is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes like the warbling of music) than in the hand.’ Other traditional favourites like violets and pinks are covered in Chapter 7.
Wallflowers (Erysimum cheiri) bring dazzling colour and fabulous scent to your garden in spring.
One of the most highly prized of scented shrubs is without doubt the rose. In the fragrant border, roses are essential. They have long been used in the production of essential oils, perfumes and rosewater. Sappho, the Greek poet (c. 600 BC), is credited with composing this verse in praise of the rose:
Would Jove appoint some flower to reign In matchless beauty on the plain, The rose (mankind will all agree) The rose the Queen of Flowers should be.
The Queen of Flowers Roses are essential for any aromatherapy garden. The Arabs were the first to discover how to distil the petals with water in the ninth century and soon after began producing rose water on a vast scale. Rose oil is still considered one of the most important of all scents in perfumery work, while its healing qualities are just as highly valued in modern aromatherapy practice as they were thousands of years ago.
Classical rose gardens The addition of roses will enhance almost any garden, and there is now such a range available that it is possible to find a fragrant variety to thrive in even the most inhospitable of situations. The cerise, raspberryscented, thornless rose ‘Zéphirine Drouhin’, for example, will tolerate a dry, shady position.
Classically, roses lend themselves to a formal planting plan, where a whole area is devoted to the appreciation of their unique beauty and perfume. Formal rose gardens reached their zenith in France under the auspices of the Empress Josephine, who established an important collection at her home, La Malmaison, in the late eighteenth century. By the time she died, she had collected more than 250 varieties, which were laid out in formally designed beds.
A classical rose garden still features in many historic gardens, often encompassed by box hedging, although its interpretation can vary in style from the formal to the romantic. In the former, the roses are grown as specimens in their own right, whereas in the cottage-garden style of the latter they tend to be mixed or underplanted with other old-fashioned, fragrant plants such as dwarf lavenders and pinks. A number of herbaceous flowers also mingle happily with roses in an aromatic border and traditionally complement their beauty, including sweet rocket, peonies, irises and lilies. Roses also combine well with herbs in a potager or kitchen garden, mixing notably with lady's mantle, lemon balm, cotton lavender, catmint and chives – an excellent companion partnership since the latter seem to help prevent disease on the roses. (The use of a range of herbs in the perfumery border is described in Chapter 7.)
Roses can be planted with other flowers, such as lavender.
Roses in mixed borders In large gardens, the most striking effects are achieved by planting groups of three or more of one variety or species of rose together. In a smaller garden there may not be space for more than a few individual specimens. Even if it is not possible to devote a specific area of the garden to roses, there is sure to be a place for a single rose. According to Rosemary Verey, most oldfashioned roses in fact look best grown in association with other plants in a more relaxed type of border setting. She advises, however:
In choosing varieties it is important to bear in mind that many bloom only once and that the foliage of some is rather drab after flowering, while others have attractive leaves and hips in autumn. It is wise, therefore, as in garden planning generally, to have other features nearby to attract the eye away from plants which are past their best towards a different focal point.
(The Scented Garden)
This classic rose gardens at Butchart Gardens, Victoria, Canada, features tea roses, floribundas and ramblers.
Fragrant evergreen shrubs such as the mint bush, choisyas and daphnes can provide enduring structure to a border of otherwise deciduous shrubs such as roses. The additional under planting of spring bulbs will immediately expand the season in which any garden can be enjoyed and is easy to accomplish. A carefully designed layout that maintains the overall structure, such as the use of clipped box hedging around the edge of the beds or a focal point, such as a sundial or fountain, is the most consistent way to provide year-round interest.
The original wild rose species Today there are thousands of different varieties of rose in cultivation, but amongst these, some are especially outstanding for the sweetness of their perfume. One of the most exquisite of the early roses is the wild eglantine rose or sweet briar (Rosa rubiginosa), immortalised in Elizabethan poetry. Although it has a very simple form, its delicious apple-like fragrance and hardy growth have ensured its long-lasting popularity. Vita Sackville-West thought a hedge of sweet briar
one of the most desirable things in any garden. . . after rain the scent is really and truly strong in the ambient air. You do not need to crush a leaf between your fingers to provoke the scent: it swells out towards you of its own accord, as you walk past, like a great sail filling suddenly with a breeze off those Spice Islands which Columbus hoped to find.
(The Illustrated Garden Book)
Damask rose (Rosa x damascena)
Rosa gallica ‘Versicolor’
The original wild roses, at least 150 in number, are ancestors of all the roses we know today. One of the most important and ancient of the very early European roses is the French rose or rose of Provins (R. gallica var. officinalis), otherwise known as the apothecary's rose; in the Middle Ages it was widely used by physicians for its medicinal properties. It has velvety, pinky-crimson petals and a rich, sumptuous perfume. Derived directly from R. gallica var. officinalis is the striking striped rose, known as Rosa Mundi (R. gallica ‘Versicolor’), romantically named after the mistress of Henry II, Fair Rosamund. Gallica roses might well have been brought to England during the Crusades, although their exact date of provenance is in fact unknown.
Most Gallicas are very resilient, fragrant bushes and flower over the midsummer period. They range in colour from deep pink to a purple or crimson. One of the best of the Gallicas is the crimson-purple ‘Charles de Mills’, having an exotic fragrance. Another outstanding Gallica is ‘Duc de Guiche’ which is a double, dark crimson-purple. ‘Tuscany Superb’, a sport from Tuscany, is deep crimson.
Damask roses Damask roses (R. damascena) were brought to Europe from Damascus by the Crusaders during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Damask roses, together with the Albas and Centifolias, are some of the most important roses in the production of perfume and rosewater. The Persian rose ‘Ispahan’ is a superb Damask, strongly perfumed, light pink and famed for blooming six weeks longer than other old shrub roses. Nancy Steen, a New Zealand-based authority on old roses, extols its virtues thus:
a paragon amongst Damask Roses is Ispahan, Rose d’lsfahan or Pompom des Princes – a rose that grows wild on the hills of Persia ... When this Damask Rose is in full bloom, literally thousands of perfect flowers weight down the long arching branches until the bush looks like a fountain or shower of several shades of pink.
(D. Kellaway, The Virago Book of Women Gardeners)
Rosa ‘Alba Maxima’
Alba roses The Alba rose dates back to the Middle Ages and is one of the hardiest, with colours ranging from pink to white. ‘Alba Maxima’, otherwise known as the Jacobite Rose or the White Rose of York during the War of the Roses, is a very ancient and vigorous ivory-white rose with a superb scent. ‘Alba Semiplena’ is a close relative famous for its fragrance and grown in Bulgaria for distilling attar of roses. Perhaps the most beautiful of the Albas, though, is ‘Queen of Denmark’ – more correctly known as ‘Königin von Dänemark’. Sweetly scented pink blooms bestow a strong, warm fragrance, making it an indispensable rose for the aromatherapy border.
Centifolia or cabbage roses Centifolia roses are a richly perfumed group of old double roses that thrive in warm climates. Rosa centifolia means literally the rose of a hundred petals. Originally identified in Holland in the sixteenth century, these roses were immortalised by the Dutch and Flemish painters of the seventeenth century.
A sport of R. x centifolia grown extensively in France and Morocco for commercial extraction purposes is known as ‘Rose de Mai’; its rich fragrance has a narcotic, aphrodisiac quality. The rose garden at Sissinghurst boasts a very beautiful, abundant ‘Chapeau de Napoleon’ (syn. R. x centifolia ‘Cristata’), another pink Centifolia with a strong balsamic scent, which stands out even amongst its illustrious neighbours. ‘Tour de Malakoff’, also known as the Taffeta Rose, is peony-like and its flowers turn from bluishpink to violet and then lavender. It has a superb perfume. According to rose expert Graham Stuart Thomas, ‘there is nothing like it in horticulture ... with flowers that take one's breath away.’
Cabbage rose (Rosa centifolia)
Portland roses The Portland rose is named after the Duchess of Portland, thought to have brought the rose from Italy to England in the eighteenth century. The rose is of unclear parentage, although some claim it is a cross between a Damask and Gallica with a China rose. Unlike most old-fashioned roses, Portlands are both repeat flowering and highly fragrant, possibly due to their Damask origins. One of the most beautiful of the Portland roses is ‘Comte de Chambord’, originally bred in America, but renamed after the Comte in France. It has deep pink, highly fragrant and full flowers. Rosa ‘De Rescht’ is also well perfumed with deep crimson flowers, and is one of the best of the repeat-flowering roses as it is free of any disease.
Bourbon roses Shortly after the Portland rose appeared, another very beautiful and fragrant class of recurrent roses arose from the southern Indian ocean: the Bourbons. Their fragrance frequently has overtones of raspberry. Perhaps one of the loveliest Bourbons is ‘Louise Odier’, which has deep pink, cupped petals, and flowers continuously in the summer. ‘Madame Isaac Pereire’ is one of the largest and most vigorous of the Bourbons and is a delightful deep pink, with a hauntingly fragrant perfume. ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’, named after Empress Josephine's garden in Paris, is a pale pink with a very strong perfume. Unfortunately, it does not like rain. Of the white Bourbons, ‘Boule de Neige’ is an excellent highly fragrant shrub, with camellia-like blooms.
New English roses Of the new class of repeat-flowering English roses created by David Austin, some of the most memorably scented and reliable are ‘Gertrude Jekyll’, which is a soft pink, exceptionally fragrant rose used in perfumes; ‘Constance Spry’, which has a strong myrrh fragrance; and ‘Heritage’, with pink, peony-like blooms. For yellow roses, ‘Graham Thomas’ is hard to beat for its deep golden colour as well as its Tea-rose fragrance. ‘Golden Celebration’, with even deeper yellow blooms, has an exquisite fragrance. The dark red rose ‘The Prince’ is spectacular, and ‘Falstaff’, a new red rose, promises to be one of the most beautiful and fragrant of the English reds.
English rose (Rosa ‘Lady of Shalot’)
Rosa rugosa
Other roses It is not possible to deal with all the other classes of roses, except to mention briefly Tea roses, for their fragrance, and Rugosa roses. Tea roses arrived in England via the East India Company along with cargoes of tea in the nineteenth century. John Harkness, grandfather of the famous rose grower, Jack, extolled their virtues: ‘If the rose be the queen of flowers, the Tea-scented Rose may be regarded as the queen of queens, for undoubtedly they are in refinement and delicate beauty superior to their robust and more highly coloured relatives.’ Moss roses, such as the exceptional ‘William Lobb’, are often highly scented due to their Damask/Centifolia origins.
A perfumed border should always contain the hardy Rugosa roses, with their clover-like fragrance. ‘Roseraie de I’Haÿ’ is perhaps the best known of these hardy, aromatic shrub roses that make ideal hedging. The flowers are a deep purply-crimson and smell of almonds. The most scented of the Rugosa roses is probably the single white Rosa rugosa ‘Alba’ and the double white ‘Blanche Double de Coubert’. Rugosas flower throughout the summer and have fine hips in the autumn.
For descriptions of climbing and rambling fragrant roses, see page 87.
A number of traditional shrubs which mingle happily with roses in the fragrant border and complement their beauty (including choisya, daphne and orangeblossom), are listed below. Others, such as cistus or rock rose, lavender and myrtle, are described in Chapter 7, together with recommended varieties.
Buddleja A common yet very reliable shrub, which has panicles of honey-scented flowers borne over a long period. It is a good wall shrub, growing to a considerable height, enjoys a sunny sheltered position and flowers from midsummer to early autumn. Buddleja is rich in nectar and is often referred to as the butterfly bush. B. alternifolia originated in China and is a graceful shrub with lilac flowers. B. davidii, one of the more familiar species, ranges in colour from dark purple through to violet and reddish purple. A particularly striking shrub is B. d. ‘Black Knight’, which has flowers in a rich dark violet. B. fallowiana var. alba carries creamy white flowers, as does B. d. ‘White Bouquet’.
Buddleja (Buddleja davidii)
Mexican orange blossom (Choisya ternata)
Choisya C. ternata is a neat and beautiful hardy evergreen shrub, also known as Mexican orange blossom as it is native to Mexico. Invaluable for the scented border, it has the virtue of flowering twice, first in the spring and then again in the autumn, although with fewer flowers. The scent is delicious, redolent of orange blossom and carried by white star-like flowers. In addition, its glossy green leaves release an astringent fragrance when squeezed. This is an easy plant to grow, especially if planted against a sheltered wall. ‘Sundance’ has bright golden leaves whereas ‘Aztec Pearl’ has green leaves and almond-scented flowers. The latter blooms in late spring and then again later in the summer.
Daphne Sweetly clove-scented, daphnes fill the garden with their glorious scent in early spring. Out of the 50 daphnes available, some of which are evergreen and some deciduous, about half have exquisitely scented flowers that can be smelt from a metre or two. Perhaps the easiest to grow is D. x burkwoodii ‘Somerset’, which has pink clusters of flowers. D. odora is strongly scented while one of the most familiar is D. mezereum, which is native to Britain and bears pink or white flowers. The very showy D. bholua var. glacialis ‘Gurkha’, which comes from Nepal, has mauve-pink flowers that are powerfully fragrant, as are those of D. b. ‘Jacqueline Postill’.
Deutzia These are deciduous shrubs, which carry white, pink or purple flowers. They flower from late spring to early summer and are native to the Himalayas, China, Japan and Central America. One of the finest species comes from western China: D. longifolia ‘Veitchii’ has lilac-pink flowers until the middle of the summer. For summer blooming, one of the best shrubs is D. setchuenensis var. corymbiflora with starry white flowers. D. compacta has an almond scent with white flowers developing from pink buds.
Mahonia Mahonias are magnificent architectural plants bearing spiky evergreen foliage and yellow flowers. The scented species smell of lily-of-the-valley. The genus falls into two categories: those that are taller and prefer some shade are originally from Asia; the smaller species from America prefer more sun. M. japonica is native to China and has fragrant lemon-yellow flowers borne from late autumn until early spring. Another excellent mahonia bearing fragrant bright yellow flowers is M. x media ‘Lionel Fortescue’. M. x m. ‘Charity’ is also popular but its lily-ofthe- valley fragrance is not as pronounced. M. aquifolium (the Oregon grape) comes from western North America and is a small shrub with yellow honey-scented flowers followed by blue-black berries.
Mahonia (Mahonia aquifolium)
Rhododendron (Rhododendron ‘Roseum Elegans’)
Paeony Paeonies are invaluable in the early summer border. Many are scented and range in colour from white through to crimson. Two delightful pink fragrant paeonies are P. lactiflora ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ and ‘Marie Crousse’, while the ‘Duchesse de Nemours’ is a good double-scented white. For a stunning single white variety, P. emodi is my favourite. Paeonies flower early in the season along with the first roses of summer, and can be used to fill in spaces under other shrubs.
Philadelphus This is one of the most fragrant shrubs in the midsummer border. Its scent is like that of orange blossom, hence its common name of mock orange. One of the most highly scented is the double variety, P. ‘Virginal’. P. coronarius is one of the most common species. It carries single white flowers and has been grown in gardens since the sixteenth century. It is a cottage-garden favourite and has a very powerful fragrance. P. ‘Beauclerk’ has single white flowers with a more delicate scent but is still delightfully fragrant. Most of these shrubs are tall but P. ‘Manteau d’Hermine’ is suitable for growing at the front of the border.
Rhododendron These form some of the most strikingly beautiful and dramatic shrubs, a small number of which are sweetly scented, including the class of rhododendrons known as azaleas. They range in size from small bushes to large trees. The most common species in woodland gardens, and one of the most fragrant, is R. luteum, the yellow deciduous azalea from the Caucasus, which fills the spring air with its honeysuckle fragrance. From the eastern United States comes R. atlanticum with small white or sometimes pink-flushed flowers that have a rich rosespiced scent. Originally from the Himalayas is a subspecies of R. maddenii, introduced in the nineteenth century by Sir Joseph Hooker – R. m. subsp. crassum, which is very beautiful, and white flushed through to pink.
Skimmia This is a small, compact, evergreen spring-flowering shrub from the Himalayas and East Asia. It is happy to grow in shade and in containers. Male and female flowers with a powerful fragrance are borne on different plants and both are needed if you are to get brightly coloured red winter berries. S. japonica can grow up to 1.2m (4ft) high. For fragrance, the best cultivar is S. j. ‘Fragrans’, a male plant with white flowers and a scent like lily-of-the-valley. S. j. ‘Rubella’ is another male skimmia and is good in winter gardens as it carries red buds in the winter that open out into yellow flowers in spring. For the front of the border, a smaller skimmia such as S. j. subsp. reevesiana ‘Robert Fortune’ is ideal, usually growing to less than a metre high. It is native to China and, unlike other skimmias, its white spring flowers are hermaphrodite and are also sweetly fragrant.
Viburnum This is one of the best genera of highly fragrant shrubs for the scented border. Viburnum comprises around 150 species, both evergreen and deciduous, many of which have a sweet honey scent. Some flower in late autumn through the winter to early spring, while others flower in spring. One of the most beautiful and an old favourite of the spring-flowering species is V. carlesii, which is native to Japan and Korea. Its flowers are initially pale pink turning to white and are deliciously fragrant with a scent like daphne. V. farreri (syn. V. fragrans) has the virtues of being free-flowering, highly scented and hardy. Another lovely viburnum is V. x bodnantense, which blooms through winter with rose-flushed fragrant flowers that fade to white. This is probably the finest of the winter-flowering viburnum, with a fragrance that is honey scented and suffused with almond. V. x burkwoodii is semi-evergreen and is good in city gardens as it does not mind pollution. Its pink-budded white flowers are sweetly scented with the clove-like fragrance of old-fashioned pinks and it flowers from midwinter to late spring. V. odoratissumum has fragrant white flowers but prefers a mild climate or to be planted against a warm wall.
Wintersweet Chimonanthus praecox or wintersweet is a deciduous shrub from China. Its yellow flower bells are stained purple, with a wonderfully sweetly spiced scent. Rosemary Verey evocatively describes it as reminiscent of jonquil and violet. Wintersweet brightens up the border in the middle and later part of winter. To get the full benefit of its sweet winter fragrance, plant it close to the house, preferably near a wall. The more heat it absorbs in the summer, the more abundant will be the flowers in winter. In the border, wintersweet is best planted at the back, as it is distinctly uninteresting in the summer.
Skimmia (Skimmia japonica)
Witch hazel Hamamelis mollis, or Chinese witch hazel, is the most common and popular witch hazel. Its flowers have a fresh, spicy-fruity scent and are carried from early winter to early spring. These deciduous hardy shrubs are excellent for the border in winter, when they scent the garden with their unusual yellow or reddish flowers. H. ‘Brevipetala’ has deep autumnal yellow flowers with a heavy sweet perfume; H. x intermedia ‘Pallida’ has a lighter yellow flower with a strong, sweet yet delicate fragrance. Another powerfully scented variety is H. japonica ‘Zuccariniana’, which has pale lemon-yellow flowers. For autumn colour, the leaves of H. x i. ‘Jelena’ turn to scarlet, orange and red while the flowers themselves appear almost orange. The distilled extract that is obtained from H. virginiana, known as witch-hazel water, is widely used as a treatment for sprains and bruises and as an astringent cosmetic lotion.
