Fragrance and flowers

Southern Living, Feb 2003 by Bender, Steve

When winter daphne blooms, you know spring is in the air.

If only they made an ice cream that tasted like those blooms smell." That's the best description I've ever heard of winter daphne's intoxicating fragrance. Sometimes the perfume seems honey-sweet, sometimes citrusy, and other times spicy like cloves. But whatever version shows up that day, your mouth waters just the same.

Native to China, winter daphne (Daphne odora) forms a dense, tidy mound 3 to 4 feet high and wide. Its handsome evergreen foliage consists of slender, glossy leaves about 3 inches long. While the straight species has solid green leaves, variegated selections sport leaves edged in creamy white or yellow. Boutonniere-size clusters of small, waxy flowers appear atop the foliage for several weeks in late winter, at about the same time that camellias bloom. The flowers are pink in bud, then open to either white or pale pink. So powerful is the scent that you'll often smell a daphne in bloom well before you see it.

If it drives you nuts to constantly battle rank and unruly shrubs, you're going to love this one. Well-behaved, slow-- growing, and refined, it seldom needs pruning. Take advantage of the fragrance by planting it near sitting areas, entryways, porches, and paths. Or use it in foundation plantings and rock gardens. Selections include 'Alba' (green foliage and white flowers), `Aureo-Marginata' (yellow-edged leaves and blush white flowers), and 'Leucanthe' (green foliage and light pink flowers).

Great fragrance, good foliage, nice behavior-with all this going for it, you may wonder why more people don't plant winter daphne. The answer is that it is fickle, to say the least, and it has a nasty habit of dying on you just as you've decided you can't live without it (you can, but it's hard). What's the secret to its long-term survival? Louise Wrinkle of Birmingham, who owns the beautiful daphne you see here, says, "I think it needs absolutely the sharpest drainage you can give it." She grows hers on a raised garden terrace that contains mostly limestone gravel. She doesn't water or fertilize it. Although daphne will grow in acid soil, the use of limestone in this case indicates that neutral to slightly alkaline soil may be even better.

You don't have to plant it atop a terrace or raised bed. Instead, select a slightly sloping spot, where excess water quickly runs off. Dig a hole as deep as the root ball, but three times as wide. Discard any clay. Place the root ball in the hole so that the top inch sticks above the soil surface, and then fill in around it with a mixture of half topsoil and half pine bark or gravel. Water well, and cover the root ball with mulch. STEVE BENDER