February Plant of the Month
Winter flowering shrubs are generous with their perfume. You can be walking along and suddenly find yourself drawn towards the source of a delicious scent. And when you find the flower, it’s often a small, fairly insignificant bloom that is wafting around its powerful perfume. That’s because winter flowering shrubs have to really work to attract any early flying bees on sunny winter days.
Lonicera fragrantissima, the winter honeysuckle, is a RHS ‘Plants for Pollinators’ designated plant, deemed highly beneficial to early spring pollinators. It’s lovely little creamy-white flowers appear on almost leafless stems between December to March. These are sometimes followed by dull red berries and its purple-flushed green leaves appear in spring.
It’s an insignificant twiggy shrub during the summer months and can grow to about 2m high and wide. For the most floriferous display and to keep it compact, train it against a sunny wall, ideally near a path or entrance where you can appreciate its heady scent.
This is a hardy, low maintenance shrub, pest and disease resistant, that requires no special attention, other than your appreciation of it in mid winter.
