Daphne odora

Winter Daphne is one of the most beloved and most exasperating shrubs in the southern garden, grown for a fragrance that arrives in the dead of winter and carries clear across a yard. In late winter the dense, rounded evergreen opens tight clusters of small, waxy, rose-pink flowers, and the scent, sweet and far-reaching, is the whole argument for growing the plant. This is the non-variegated form, with clear pink bloom and glossy, unmarked deep green leaves.

The name reaches back to Greek myth, to Daphne, the nymph who became a laurel to escape Apollo, while the Latin epithet odora simply means fragrant, and few plants have earned an epithet so plainly. Native to China and long carried into Japan and Korea, Winter Daphne has been cultivated since the Song dynasty, more than a thousand years ago. An old Chinese herbal tells of a monk who fell asleep beneath a cliff on Lu Mountain, dreamed of an unforgettable fragrance, and woke to climb in search of the source, finding this shrub in bloom and naming the plant sleeping scent. European gardeners did not receive Winter Daphne until 1771, when the shrub reached Britain from Japan.

All that devotion comes with a warning that every daphne grower learns. Winter Daphne is not an easy plant to produce, which keeps the shrub scarce in the trade, and even a settled specimen can break your heart by dropping dead for no obvious reason, usually from root rot. Very sharp drainage is the single most important condition, and a raised or sloping site earns its keep. Every part of the plant is also poisonous, from leaf to fruit, so Winter Daphne is best kept away from where children or pets graze, a trait that at least persuades the deer to pass by.

Placed well, Winter Daphne repays the fuss extravagantly. Site the shrub where the late-winter perfume will be caught daily, beside a door, along a path, or under a window, with a little shelter from harsh sun and wind, and the crest of a berm or the lip of a raised bed to guarantee drainage. Handsome among hellebores, snowdrops, early bulbs, and evergreen ferns, Winter Daphne rewards a well-chosen spot with one of the great fragrances of the cold-weather garden.