Late season clean up
Putting your garden to bed is a phrase I use a lot. I even used it last fall to sell my garden services to a lady of a certain age who is no longer mobile enough to work in her garden. She agreed, and I took two sessions late in the season to put her garden to bed.
I cutback all of her perennials, I power sheared some of her shrubs, I weeded, and I picked up all of her leaves from the fall. It looked nice and neat, and she was happy. That was it. Now we just wait for spring.
Or do we?
Winter garden
Now, when my son played soccer in North Vancouver in late January, I picked up a copy of the Financial Times (January 24-25, 2026) because I knew that the weekend edition publishes a garden column. And it was worth every cent.
Lauren Indvik writes in her column on pages two and three, that we can also enjoy our gardens in winter. Winter gardens can have lots of colour and fragrance. Aha. All of a sudden, I realized I was getting schooled.
The column mentions one ingenious garden at Cambridge University Botanic Garden, which uses tall yew hedges and a dip in the walkway to lock in the winter fragrance.
And here’s a good tip: you don’t need a huge garden. You can strategically place your pots at entrances or behind benches, where you’ll notice the fragrance.
Closer to home
Closer to home, I’m used to enjoying the fragrance of mass-planted Sarcococca plants. You sometimes notice the fragrance before spotting the plants. But, you can do better. We’ll get to Indvik’s plant list in a second.
First, let me tell you about my walk today. I did a huge two-hour loop, finishing with coffee and a visit to my neighbourhood Garden Works store. As soon as I walked around the building, I saw the plants for sale with their labels shouting “fragrant”. So Indvik was right.
There you go, this should be a good place to start. Witchhazels, Daphne, and Sarcococca. Indvik also likes Katsura trees (Cercidiphyllum japonicum), Mahonias, Winter honeysuckle, Camellia and Viburnum bodnantense.
If you have budget and space, you can plant some of these plants in your garden and start enjoying your new winter garden. I think it’s a brilliant idea. Why cutback your perennials in late fall and then wait until spring, when you can enjoy winter color and fragrance.
