As well as flowering in Winter, some shrubs can also have lovely fragrances to lift your spirits during the Winter months.
Camellia Japonica is a very popular, evergreen, all-year-round favourite for the garden with its fabulous blooms, ranging from white, red, pink or bi-coloured. Planted in dappled shade it will flower from late Autumn until early Spring.
Pittisporum eugenioides (Lemonwood tree) has dense, pale green leaves with silver edging. It produces highly scented cream-coloured flowers in late Winter and will make an outstanding specimen feature in the garden.
Chaenomeles japonica (flowering quince) is a rounded, bushy shrub with spreading spiny branches, which also make it an excellent security hedge.
Although it loses its leaves in Winter it produces amazingly beautiful clusters of red, pink, apricot or white blooms close to the bare branches in mid-Winter. These are followed by small quince-like fruits in Summer which are often used to make jelly.
Buddleja auriculata (weeping sage) can be grown as a shrub or small tree. It is evergreen with lance-shaped, glossy dark green leaves, which are white on the underside. In Autumn and Winter attractive small Orange-centred tubular creamy white flowers, with a delicious fragrance of oranges, appear on dense panicles which attracts pollinating insects, including butterflies, that absolutely love them!
Mahonia lomariifolia ( Chinese holly grape) is evergreen with large, holly-like dark green leaves and in May, June and July it bears tall spikes of gorgeously fragrant yellow flowers, followed by purple/blue fruit, which provides a welcome meal for birds.
Daphne odora aureomaginata has glossy variegated evergreen leaves and the pink/white flowers are highly fragrant, blooming from mid-July until early Spring. The shrub needs to be planted in a sheltered position, protected from cold winds.