Hi Everybody. What's blooming, you ask. Not the Diascia above. I just put it there 'cuz it's pretty.
The story goes like this. I'm just home from an errand. The air outside my car smells like, [gross alert] somebody farted cabbage. Is that graphic enough? It used to happen occasionally when the paper mill was in full operation. I don't know what caused it today. Nasty stuff. So imagine my surprise as I got closer to my front door and caught wind [and whiff] of a delicious, exotic floral scent. I knew immediately it was my Sarcococca ruscifolia. Sweet Box if you don't feel like rolling your tongue over several times. Below is my ten year old plant, measuring approximately three feet by three feet.
The story goes like this. I'm just home from an errand. The air outside my car smells like, [gross alert] somebody farted cabbage. Is that graphic enough? It used to happen occasionally when the paper mill was in full operation. I don't know what caused it today. Nasty stuff. So imagine my surprise as I got closer to my front door and caught wind [and whiff] of a delicious, exotic floral scent. I knew immediately it was my Sarcococca ruscifolia. Sweet Box if you don't feel like rolling your tongue over several times. Below is my ten year old plant, measuring approximately three feet by three feet.
It grows in this stupid stacked rock planter some idiot decided to build along our house's facade long before we called it home. Very few things grow here because the lighting is weird and the soil--despite my efforts--is crappy [not the good kind of crappy either]. Sarcoccoa thrives in these inhospitable conditions. And not only that, it grows slowly, it keeps its foliage year round and produces dark berries in fall that persist until whenever they drop off in spring. Or is it summer? Catherine?
Lots of buds are yet to burst. My reference tells me is hardy in Zones 8-10 but since we've all admitted to a serious case of Zonal Denial, perhaps this treasure is in your future.
I have a vaseful of these diminutive jewels about five feet from where I'm sitting. The scent is the quintessential aroma therapy. I've died. I'm in heaven. There's hope. Things are right on cue. My January friend has wooed me once again. Gosh I love gardening.
The December freeze was brutal to one of my Daphne odora shrubs. Despite the lackluster foliage, she's got buds. So my February friend is also right on cue.
Before I close, I have to say that I'm miffed about Jay Leno's show. I enjoyed watching him at ten while touching base with my garden blogging buddies. I guess I'm in the minority, preferring comedy to murder.
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43 COMMENTS, Click here to add yours:
How lovely! your post are always fun to read and beautiful and if we had smell-a-vison fragrant in a good way - G
Grace, much as I would love the box, I think that Zone 8 is even pushing my zonal denial!
Grace,
I really like the foliage on that Sweet Box and the flowers are an added bonus too. I'll keep an eye open for it here.
Grace mine is also blooming! I noticed it over the smell of cigarette smoke (wish they would smoke inside so I don't have to smell in my garden, but that's another topic) from my next door neighbor. It does have a sweet smell! Mine still has berries on it from last year, they usually drop during the summer I think.
Guess what, my Daphne looks almost exactly the same as yours and I had taken pictures of it today to post tomorrow. Great minds think and plant alike I guess!
Lovely photos and more zone and garden envy on my part. I don't know how bad your bad smell was but I do know that you never, ever want to smell the odor that comes from the Great Salt Lake after a strong wind. Just sayin'.
I'm with you about Jay. It wasn't always great but much better than what I call the "Dead Shows".
Grace, you crack me up! My dwarf Sarcococca hookeriana(?) is getting ready, but not quite blooming yet. It's also planted (by us) in a narrow planter along the front of our house. I can't wait!
And, pray tell, what is the *good* kind of crappy soil???
I can smell it from here, love the berries too. Did you guys send some rain our way....it's supposed to drizzle a little tonight :)
Oh that must be heavenly blooming right now by your door!!!
The buds remind of star jasmine.
I've been considering getting sweet box for a while now and after this post I think I might just have to get some!
I would love to smell it every time I leave/enter the house, and at this time of year we definitely need a pick me up!
How nice to have a sweet smell from the garden in January...is that rock planter really that stupid? Didn't watch Jay Leno--sorry for your loss....
I love your wit Grace and would enjoy such a fragrance in my garden but alas ... my zone denies me the pleasure. All of the photographs are lovely ... your first one is a stopper. I hope it was not your air that was foul but some harmless garden gnome who slurped up too much cabbage soup! ;-)
What a treat for the Sarcoccoca to be blooming.. it is a part shade plant if I remember.....might be a good one for my new garden.
We have a paper mill up river on the James...pee-eww. In town we have a petroleum plant...another stinky.
Not the good kind of crappy, that's rich, Grace! A good sales pitch for this native. I will give it another look, we could use more broad leaf evergreens that bloom in January! As if there are any others. Well, if you count the Osmanthus fragrans with the scorched brown blooms, or our own daphne, looking very much like yours. The leaves get so burnt by the time it blooms, a chronic problem. Your box leaves look good, hmm, brain is whirring....
Frances
I feel that way when my 'Mohawk' Viburnum burkwoodii blooms!! It's heavenly - sweetly spiced. You can be anywhere in the front yard and still detect it! (In the Spring... when the Winter snows have disappeared and the grass is beginning to green, and the early blooming bulbs are blooming!) Have a great day! :-)
Oh! What IS your definition of Good crappy soil?? ha!
I've never seen this plant (definitely a nonstarter here, Grace), but I can smell it just from your joy. I've weeded out the scent of cabbage because that's just too close to the reality around here last night, after cabbage role casserole...;-)
And the glee in your title made me grin before I even got here!
All of my soil is crappy and not even the good crappy. Well now I am just jealous that you and Catherine have blooms starting. I have no experience with the Sweet Box, it is out of my zone, way out even for zone denial, but it sounds like it has everything going for it.
You are right the Diascia 'ez purtty'.
I love your sweet box shrub. Wish I could grow it here. The leaves are so glossy and nice and the berries are beautiful.
Marnie
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Hi Grace,
I always recommend planting sarcococca and daphne next to the front door of the house so that the inhabitants can enjoy 2 months of intense fragrance every winter. Yum.
Hope the cabbage farts go away.
Cindee
Hi Grace,
You are so funny. I love your writing style. Isn't it moments like this when a favorite shrub blooms that makes all of it worth it?
Wow! It's beautiful -- and I can almost imagine the scent. -Jean
Hi Grace - I'm glad that you are in heaven and I am communicating with an angelic creature :) I have sarcococca confusa but it has never flourished. Time to move it maybe. I can imagine the whiff from a mature plant. Will look into ruscifolia. By the way it has still not defrosted here, so I have still not been able to look for that geranium phaeum label - I have not forgotten - yet ..... :)
Too funny about the smell! OK, I'm envying your zone too... Everything is frozen rock solid in New England... we barely get in the low 20s temps every day.
I can't imagine a garden without Sarcoccoca. I've planted it in every garden I've ever had. What else grows in dry shade, looks good year round, smells fabulous in the winter, and comes as bushes and as groundcovers.
Deirdre
Hi Grace, I guess the previous owner got fed up with that part of the house too and put the planter in. I can't see the whole thing, but doesn't look so bad to me - what don't you like about it?
Congrats on your Sweet Box!
I really wonder whether those berries are edible?
Though its tropical here, I doubt plants such as these may able to survive in my weather condition.
Heaven? I wish I had some experience like that this moment.
Caught wind, eh? Ick! I was cracking up when I read your opening sentences.
Love Sarcococca!
No more cabbage for awhile, however. LOL
Riz
Hi Grace,
I've only recently discovered your blog - love your photos, love your writing and (sorry) love your 'stacked rock planter'. I can almost smell the Sarcoccoa!
Grace,
Sweet Box is quite lovely, and in your area, I would imagine it to be a coveted plant for its delightful fragrance in the dead of winter. I love the shiny leaves and dark berries. This goes beyond my zonal denial, but I wonder if it would be happy in a pot?
P.S. I meant to tell you that I inherited a lovely houseplant, which sadly, was infested with mealy bugs. I tried your Safer's trick - sprayed and wrapped the plant with a plastic bag for 24 hours. Seems to have worked like a charm!! Thanks, Grace. :) -Liisa
Grace, This is a beauty and knowing it has a delicious fragrance makes it even more attractive to add to a garden. I fear that zone denial plants in my garden might have been killed by the single digit temps we had this past two weeks. gail
All the way at the end of the post and I'm still side-tracked by that dainty pink diascia. How pretty is she? Okay, back to the topic at hand ~ how wonderful to have something in bloom outdoors right now. I wonder if it's hardy here (in zone 5?) If so, it would probably be months behind yours... sigh. Enjoy the good fragrance and hopefully the offensive one will dissipate quickly! Reading posts from gardeners in warmer zones gives me hope that spring will arrive ~ we'll just have to live thru the blooms in your gardens until it does.
PS What a mess the comedy situation is ~ I can't see a good solution now for anybody?
I've seen some sweetbox in catalogs that are supposedly hardy to zone 5, with protection. Maybe S. confusa or something? Yours is gorgeous. I'm definitely going to try this shrub in my yard, though it will probably look crappy, and not the good crappy ;-), by this time of year. My hellebores look like the place inspired by their name, poor things. New spring foliage will make them all better, though.
I sometimes think I've 'died and gone to heaven' when I take a virtual tour of your gardens. :) Of all the google apps invented, when do you suppose we'll get the fragrance app? Your descriptions are lovely though it makes me long for the real thing. (And, I'm not talkin' cabbage farts!)
wow grace your sweet box is blooming, i love that scent-its heavenly! i'll trade ya some plumeria blooms for just one whiff :)
i love the first photo of that diascia, its beautiful and it really draws you in....wow!
oooh, you tricked us with the dascia!
That shrub is great! you get that nice foliage, fragrant winter flowers AND those gorgeous dark berries - and it grows in bad crap soil? What a winner!
Glad the sweet box is chasing the stinkiness away! I noticed mine getting started (rhymes with...) last weekend, it was so powerful that the scent wafted around from the back of the house to the front! I have quite a few, they are so easy and I used to take them for granted but not anymore. They just need shade, as the sad, yellowed one I dug up and gave away truly showed from its years in too much sun. Oh, your post reminds me to go look at my Daphne, I haven't even checked it once this winter, how remiss!
Oh I hope mine is next. I always tell people who ask about what to plant to include one of these, they bloom just when you need a little pick me up in the garden. I have one by my front steps so I can appreciate it every time I come and go. I also have one quite neglected in the back yard near the section of my yard where the weeds are threatening to win the war, and I've had to aggressively pick bulb infested soil from among its roots. I have to hand it to that sarcacoca. It is tough, tough, tough, and survived more than I could expect from a plant. I just last fall planted some of the ground cover variety, I'm hoping that takes off well. And then there's the one that got away. I saw one at a plant sale with extra large golden leaves. Why, why did I leave that one behind.
Yes, I am a fan!
You never fail to elicit wonder and a big dose of laughter. I am so happy for your bloomnin' success.
Rosey
I have always liked the look of sweet box but haven't planted any because I was afraid they wouldn't like our hot summers. But I have seen so many posts lauding its great smell that i am tempted to try one and see how it does.
I am looking at the foliage and flowers, and I can almost sense the love and care that have been taking place... ~bangchik
Holy Moely ? haha
I would do a Three Stooges routine if I could sitting here in my celestial patterned pajamas cooking Boston Baked beans from scratch mind you ! .. I only wish I had a fragrant shrub to cut some branches and have a heavenly plant smell to go with the beans ? haha
Right now in the pot they are safe until we eat them ? .. Love the berries too Grace .. an all purpose shrub for sure !
Joy
I remember reading about this plant not too long ago and thought about trying it here even though we are in zone 7. Like you, I'm in denial. I love the glossy leaves and the blooms remind me of sweet olive. Very pretty.
Wow! The word has gotten out! 42 comments and counting. Congratulations on your very well-earned blogging success.
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