Small but beautifully scented

Many trees and shrubs that flower in the late winter (or early spring) have pale flowers, often highly scented. Flowers use scent to attract pollinators, usually bees and butterflies in the day time, so brightly coloured flowers offer no advantage.

This week I saw, or rather smelt, two new white-flowering, highly-scented shrubs. The first of these was on the ledge at the workstation of a colleague. She had picked some flowers off her Camellia transnokoensis and brought them into work. In the warm work environment, the few sprigs of flower were enough to scent a small room, with their spicy, heady scent. To my nose, it smelt slightly reminiscent of the once common winter-flowering, shrubby honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissimum.

This camellia species from Mount Noko in Taiwan is sometimes given the colloquial name of "transnok", and has dainty leaves, perhaps willowy, with a graceful upright habit. The pure white flowers open from tight buds marked with deep pink. This shrub is ideal for screening or hedges and, over the past few years, has become popular. It will grow to about three metres ultimately but is easily kept much smaller by clipping. Like most camellias, it thrives in moist, humus-rich soils with a neutral pH.

The other new plant (to me at least) was one that was recommended by an old friend (the friendship is old, not the friend), who had seen it growing in a garden - the slightly scarily named Osmanthus variety Pearly Gates.

I have grown some Osmanthus shrubs in the past - larger, autumn-flowered forms mainly, with overly heady scents, but I had not seen this lovely form of the smaller growing species O. delavayii. This is one of the most fragrant of all flowering shrubs, its usually insignificant flowers having a rich, heady, fruit-filled scent. Plant hybridisers have been at work on this species and a couple of new varieties have been released, with much larger flowers, while retaining the scent.

The better of them, Pearly Gates, has not yet become widespread but, when gardeners learn about its good points, it will become a firm favourite. It is a hardy evergreen shrub, providing good clean texture, the white tubular flowers giving a great display at the time of year when not much is around. It is quite slow growing and makes a perfect hedge as it is suitable for trimming - one Masterton gardener has planted it along a contained area between a wall and a glass swimming pool fence and it looks stunning.

This is not too fussy as to soil conditions - it will cope even with quite poor soils - and looks at its best when clumped into reasonable-sized groupings. With the addition of the scented flowers, it makes a great basal planting for near a house. Left to its own devices, it may grow to two metres but its compact growth habit and ready acceptance of trimming, make it easily kept to a much smaller size.

At the other end of the scale as far as flower and plant heights go, and also in full flower at the moment, are the various tree Michelias, and what a glorious sight they make, and what wonderful scent they possess.

Michelias are closely related to magnolias - some botanists are now including them in the same genus - and share the same simple flowers their cousins possess. The winter-flowering species M. doltsopa is the one in flower in gardens at the moment, with glossy green leaves covered with creamy white flowers that pop out of furry brown buds. The flowers have a scent reminiscent of the perfume of the magnificent bay laurel, Magnolia grandiflora.

Unlike the bay laurel that has a splattering of flowers for months, and never really has a grand show, Michelia doltsopa has its main flowering at this time of the year, covering itself with a multitude of flowers. It makes a handsome tree, growing to about eight metres if left unchecked, but usually a little lower in our climate.

We visited friends over the weekend, a couple who are starting out in a new garden, filled with 20-year-old trees of varying value. Some of these trees reflect a previous owner's unfamiliarity with growth rates, the classic example being a hedge of that truly wonderful shelter belt tree, Cupressocyparis leylandii - quite useful on the farm, but less so on a small town section.

Among the remains of Photinia stumps, I found a specimen of Bubbles, a lovely hybrid of M. doltsopa crossed with the strongly-scented port wine magnolia, M. figo. Bubbles is a New Zealand-raised hybrid (bred by Os Blumhardt from Whangarei), with white cup-shaped flowers that are tinted with pink when they first open from the furry brown buds that are so common among michelias. Bubbles is not as strongly scented as either parent, but still has a lovely citrus fragrance.

We grow a sibling to Bubbles called Mixed up Miss, which has deeper pink flowers, but given the choice I would go for Bubbles. Both prefer a sunny position sheltered from the worst of the wind.

We also grow M. yunnanensis, a Chinese species that has deep green glossy foliage, and masses of scented white flowers that spring from velvety buds over the next few weeks. This is a lovely growing plant with good form and is easily kept trimmed so could even be used as a hedge. I just tip back the ends of the branches when it finishes flowering to keep it trim and tidy, and it rewards us with flowers for weeks at a time.

So, even though it still not yet time to smell the roses, it might be a good time to get out and smell the small white flowers that predominate at this time of the year.