November fragrance

There’s a surprising number of fragrant flowering shrubs that you can plant now to cheer up your late-autumn gardens, says Graham Rice, as he reveals his favourites

- Graham Rice

AT first sight, November does not seem a very encouraging month for gardeners. Raking leaves, clearing away the remains of the season’s vegetables, cutting back perennials, digging – more like chores than enjoying an hour or two in the garden.

But what’s that sweet scent wafting through the air? Well, it could be one of a number of things because there’s a surprising range of fragrant November flowering shrubs, large and small, deciduous and evergreen, to ensure that our hours in the late-autumn garden are far more than a drudge.

The coming of spring

Last year in my garden, viburnums and mahonias first started to open their flowers in late September, but it wasn’t until about six weeks later that you could really say that they were ‘in flower’ – the colour and fragrance even started to reveal a sense of the coming of spring before winter had really hit.

And from now on we can pick them to arrange in small jam jars. Not whole branches, but twigs little more than 6-9in (15-23cm) long with a few sprigs of the first winter heathers, perhaps, and a little variegated foliage. Very pretty on the kitchen table and the indoor warmth will help release the scent.

I’ve tried to make my choices for November fragrance from shrubs that flower naturally at this time of year, and mainly set aside those whose autumn season is tailing off or that are jumpstarting their winter season so we’re not really stealing from other seasons.

Planting in pots