I went around the garden quickly after work the other night – had guests coming for dinner…  What to grab for a couple of vases?   Well, I can honestly say there wasn’t much out there mid-July!   I wanted some fragrance as the little vases would be sitting opposite the dining table and in the living room.  It’s so nice to come into a home and be met with some fragrance wafting from a vase or two.

However I did find three different shrubs that were full of flower AND fragrance and I thought I’d share these with you:

Osmanthus “Pearly Gates” happily lives on a bank in my garden.  A neat little evergreen shrub with tightly packed foliage that can be trimmed to any shape – they can even be trimmed to balls.  For a long time over winter it is covered with small, extremely fragrant pure white flowers.  Ideal for the small vase.

Daphne “Perfume Princess” – a new comer to my garden, planted just last year.  This is a robust Daphne with flowers on the ends of it’s branches – unlike the old Daphne leucanthe.  This makes it brilliant for picking for middle sized vases – and a heavy perfume indeed.  My three year old plant is absolutely smothered in blooms this year and it’s only been planted one year.

Camellia “Transnokoensis” was my final find.  I love this willowy Camellia with it’s tiny, fragrant blooms.  So dainty.