The intoxicating fragrance of the wintersweet fills the air alongside the Lynch Walk.
It is easy to overlook the wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox) during the summer months when it sits as a backdrop to colourful seasonal plantings, but it makes up for this in winter when it produces its fragrant flowers. These emerge before the leaves at the junction of the previous season’s shoots, and are pendent, open bowls of numerous waxy petals which produce a heady, spicy scent. Introduced to our gardens from China in 1766, C. praecox is a relatively easy shrub for the garden requiring fertile, well-drained soil in full sun, and needing no further attention beyond this.