{"title":"Sweet Box (Sarcococca)","description":"\u003cp\u003eSweet box is the plant that solves January. The flowers are small enough to overlook entirely, tucked under the leaves in tight cream clusters, and the scent they throw on a mild winter afternoon is honey and vanilla carried twenty feet down a walk. Most people smell a sarcococca before they find one, and then plant three.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese are slow, low, glossy evergreens in the boxwood family, built for the deep shade under trees and along north walls where almost nothing flowers. \u003cem\u003eSarcococca confusa\u003c\/em\u003e follows the bloom with glossy black fruit, \u003cem\u003eSarcococca ruscifolia\u003c\/em\u003e with red, and \u003cem\u003eSarcococca orientalis\u003c\/em\u003e is among the freest flowering of the group. Deer leave them alone, drought bothers them less than the delicate look suggests, and the plants stay tidy without pruning. Site a sarcococca beside a door or along a path you use in winter, which is the only way to collect on the investment.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"sarcococca-ruscifolia","title":"Sarcococca ruscifolia","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSarcococca ruscifolia\u003c\/em\u003e, the fragrant sweet box, is an evergreen shrub of the boxwood family, native to China and East Asia, grown for a winter perfume that belies the tiny flowers that carry it. In late winter and early spring the small, creamy white flowers open along the glossy stems, easy to overlook by eye but powerfully sweet on the air, and unlike the black-fruited sweet boxes, this species follows the flowers with glowing red berries.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant makes a compact, dense mound three to five feet tall, clothed in glossy, dark green, pointed leaves that hold their polish the year round. The epithet \u003cem\u003eruscifolia\u003c\/em\u003e means with leaves like Ruscus, the butcher's broom, a nod to the firm, tapering foliage, and the red berries set the species apart from its black-berried relatives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThriving in full to partial shade, this low-maintenance, pest- and disease-resistant shrub asks only for humus-rich, well-drained soil and little pruning, and is happy in the difficult shade beneath trees, along a north wall, or in a shaded courtyard. Compact and deer-resistant, the fragrant sweet box works as a low hedge, a foundation planting, a shaded border, or even a large-scale groundcover.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite \u003cem\u003eSarcococca ruscifolia\u003c\/em\u003e where the winter scent and the red berries can both be enjoyed at close range, by a door, along a shaded path, or under a window, and pair with ferns, hellebores, and other shade companions, underplanted with early bulbs. Year-round foliage, midwinter fragrance, and red winter fruit make the plant a quiet asset in any shaded garden. Photo courtesy of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/exploringcolour.wordpress.com\/2017\/09\/09\/sarcococca-ruscifolia-sweet-box\/\"\u003eExploring Colour\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057993355379,"sku":"SARC-RUSC-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/IMG_9209.jpg?v=1722388083"},{"product_id":"sarcococca-ruscifolia-var-chinensis","title":"Sarcococca ruscifolia var. chinensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eEvergreen shrub with milk-white flowers and dark red fruits. Prefers warmer climates and shade. Leaves are suggestive of Ruscus and are glossy. Related to Boxwood.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057993388147,"sku":"SARC-RUSC-CHIN-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"sarcococca-saligna","title":"Sarcococca saligna","description":"\u003cp\u003eUpright wide spreading.evergreen shrub with distinctive willow-like narrow leaves. Unlike but related to Boxwood. Dark purple to black fruit. This species from the western Himalayas is very little known and seldom available from nurseries in the U.S. Perhaps a bit less cold hardy than some of the other Sarcococca species but a good plant for shady garden areas in the Deep South.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057993551987,"sku":"SARC-SALI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-532.jpg?v=1720141128"},{"product_id":"sarcococca-hookerana-var-humilis","title":"Sarcococca hookerana var. humilis","description":"\u003cp\u003eTo 1 feet. Evergreen. Hardiest form. (See DIR) Related to Boxwood, glossy leafed, shade-demanding evergreens.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057993650291,"sku":"SARC-HOOK-HUMI-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1107.jpg?v=1720141131"},{"product_id":"sarcococca-hookerana-var-digyna","title":"Sarcococca hookerana var. digyna","description":"\u003cp\u003eA spreading, half hardy evergreen shrub with fragrant flowers and narrow, glossy leaves. It grows well in shade and is related to Boxwood. Not susceptible to diseases and insects. Displays high drought tolerance once established. Native to western China.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057993683059,"sku":"SARC-HOOK-DIGY-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-529.jpg?v=1720141134"},{"product_id":"sarcococca-confusa","title":"Sarcococca confusa","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSarcococca confusa\u003c\/em\u003e, sweet box, is one of the great winter-fragrance shrubs, a compact evergreen of the boxwood family grown for a perfume out of all proportion to the flowers that carry it. In the depths of winter the small, tassel-like, creamy white flowers open along the stems, tucked among the leaves and easy to miss by eye, but their sweet, honeyed scent carries yards on a mild day and stops passersby in their tracks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant makes a dense, rounded mound of glossy, dark green, pointed leaves, holding its polish the year round, and the winter flowers give way to shining jet-black berries that persist into the following season. The name \u003cem\u003econfusa\u003c\/em\u003e records a small botanical joke: the species was long confused with its relatives, and the wild origin, in China, was slow to be pinned down.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSweet box is a plant for the difficult shade that defeats showier shrubs, thriving in the low light beneath trees, along a north wall, or in a shaded courtyard, and asking little once settled in moist, well-drained soil. Slow-growing, dense, and deer-resistant, the shrub clips into a low informal hedge or holds its own as a foundation planting where a tidy evergreen is wanted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite \u003cem\u003eSarcococca confusa\u003c\/em\u003e where the winter scent can be caught: beside a door, along a shaded path, under a window opened on a mild day, or near a bench used in the cold months. Pair with ferns, hellebores, and other shade companions, underplant with early bulbs, and enjoy one of the surest ways to bring fragrance to a winter garden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057993715827,"sku":"SARC-CONF-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-528.jpg?v=1720141137"},{"product_id":"sarcococca-sp-sweetbox","title":"Sarcococca sp. (Sweetbox)","description":"\u003cp\u003eA Wodlanders introduction collected by Frank Bell in Yunnan, China, this sweet box appears much like Sarcococca hookerana and may be S. hookeriana digyna. We are giving you an opportunity to test and evaluate it along with us. Related to Boxwood, glossy leafed, shade-demanding evergreens.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057993977971,"sku":"SARC-SWEE-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-1201.jpg?v=1720141142"},{"product_id":"sarcococca-wallichii","title":"Sarcococca wallichii","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmong the winter-flowering shade shrubs, few reward a cold-season garden as generously as Sarcococca wallichii, the Himalayan sweet box. The genus name joins the Greek sarco, flesh, with kokkos, berry, a nod to the fleshy fruits that follow the flowers, while the species honors Nathaniel Wallich, the Danish surgeon-botanist who superintended the Calcutta botanic garden in the early nineteenth century and sent so many Himalayan plants west. Sarcococca belongs to the box family, Buxaceae, and shares that clan's patience: dense, slow, and evergreen, with the quiet good manners of a plant built for the long haul.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to the cool, humid understory of the eastern Himalaya, from Nepal and Bhutan through northern India and into southwestern China, the Himalayan sweet box grows where light is filtered and the air stays moist. The glossy, tapering leaves hold a deep green through the year, but the shrub saves its real event for the cold months, when small, ivory, almost hidden flowers open along the stems and release a fragrance out of all proportion to their size, a sweet, honeyed scent that carries several feet on a mild winter day. Small blue-black berries follow, holding on the branches like beads.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe sweet boxes have a long second life in Himalayan folk medicine. Across their native range, plants of the genus Sarcococca have been turned to for complaints as varied as fever, gastric ulcers, and muscular pain, and modern phytochemists working with Nepalese-collected Sarcococca wallichii have isolated a suite of steroidal alkaloids, among them the newly named wallichimines, now studied for anti-inflammatory activity, a reminder that this understated shrub carries more chemistry than the tidy foliage lets on.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the garden, place the Himalayan sweet box where the winter fragrance will be met rather than merely seen: beside a door, along a path walked in the cold months, or under a window left ajar on a warm afternoon. The dense evergreen habit makes the shrub a fine low hedge, a foundation planting in dry shade, or a companion to hellebores, ferns, and early bulbs beneath high-limbed trees. Slow and unfussy, sweet box asks little once settled, and rewards the gardener who plants for the nose as much as the eye.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057994043507,"sku":"SARC-WALL-01G","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/DETA-2164.jpg?v=1720141145"},{"product_id":"sarcococca-orientalis","title":"Sarcococca orientalis","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSarcococca orientalis\u003c\/em\u003e is a fragrant, uncommon sweet box from China, a compact evergreen of the boxwood family grown, like its kin, for a winter perfume far larger than the flowers that carry it. In late winter small white flowers open along the stems, modest to the eye but richly and sweetly scented, filling a still, mild day with fragrance and giving the shade garden a lift when little else stirs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plant builds a neat, rounded mound of glossy, dark green leaves that hold their color the year round, and the flowers give way to dark, glossy berries that carry on into the following season. Slower and more compact than some of its relatives, \u003cem\u003eSarcococca orientalis\u003c\/em\u003e keeps a tidy shape with almost no attention.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike the other sweet boxes, this is a plant for shade, thriving in the low light beneath trees, along a north wall, or in a shaded courtyard, in moist, well-drained soil. Deer-resistant, pest-free, and low-maintenance, the shrub earns a place as a fragrant evergreen for a border, a foundation, or a shaded path, and remains rare enough in the trade to please a collector.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSite \u003cem\u003eSarcococca orientalis\u003c\/em\u003e where the winter scent can be met at close range, by a door, along a shaded walk, or under a window, and pair with ferns, hellebores, and other shade companions, underplanted with early bulbs. A quiet, dependable source of fragrance for the winter shade garden.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057994109043,"sku":"SARC-ORIE-01G","price":40.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/SarcococcaorientalisRHS.webp?v=1784576560"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/sweet-box.oembed","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}