Daphne odora - fragrant, but sometimes less than spectacular

Whenever someone asks a question about scent in the garden, the same names are always suggested: and one of them is Daphne. There are many species of Daphne, one of the most scented being Daphne odora: one of those nice, 'obvious' names which tells you that it has an 'odour'.

The books (and now, "the internet") always say the same sort of thing: sweetly scented, very fragrant: "so plant them near to the path or the door, so that you get the benefit".

What they fail to mention is that they are not fully hardy, they don't like being waterlogged, or drying out: they don't like sandy soils, they don't like being moved, they are not that keen on being pruned, they don't do well in pots at all: in fact, they are quite fussy!

They are expensive to buy, because they are slow-growing, and difficult to propagate - although some of them will set seed quite prolifically. 

I had a Daphne mezereum, in one of "my" gardens, which refused to be propagated by cuttings, but seedlings would pop up all over the garden. 

Yes, I would go round every month or so, and carefully weed out, take home, and pot up all the babies... it was ironic that we couldn't get any cuttings to "take" from the parent plant, but we were over-run with seedlings.

Here is a batch of them - left - and these little things are four years old.

So perhaps you can appreciate how long it takes to grow a saleable plant, and why they are so expensive!

This one is Daphne odora, photo taken one April:

 

As you can see, it's lush: covered in fresh, green foliage, and there are even a few flowers still on it.

Lovely, isn't it?

Here it is, the same plant, the following March, at the tail end of a long, wet, dark, miserable winter: 

Kinda sparse!

It was like this every year, not matter whether I fed it or not: but the scent was extraordinary, even with so few - comparatively - flowers.

Going back to that comment earlier about the advice to not prune them: you can see why, the few flowers that we have are all pretty much at the tips of the branches. So if we pruned the plant, we'd lose most of the flower.

Also, because they are so slow-growing - this one is about seven years planted, and it was probably at least four years old before being planted - if you were to prune them, they would take a long time to grow back to the size they were. 

Ideal for a small garden, of course! 

They are nice in a pot, here's one which I had for many years in my own garden, until someone made me an offer for it....

 

Daphne x burkwoodii - right - is reputed to be one of the hardier Daphnes,  although it has quirks of its own: it has a habit of dropping its leaves in the middle of summer...which can be a bit unsettling, because it looks as though it's dying, just when everything else is in full glory. 

However, hang on until late winter and here it is - tra laaaa! - flowering and scented, and earning it's keep.

And yes, it's planted by the gate, so that you get the benefit every time you walk in or out - perfect positioning.

And finally, a word of warning: all parts of most of the Daphne - leaf, bark, fruit - contain toxic compounds, so don't eat it!

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