Flowers in winter. Yes there are plenty of hardy shrubs in flower right now. The yellow coronilla has been blooming in a pot in my garden all winter. The Osmanthus devayavi is just opening it's buds. Viburnum tinus 'Lisarose' 'French White' Eve Price and the many other varieties still deserves ten out of ten as my top evergreen winter shrub. Lonicera 'Fragrantisima' or 'Winter Beauty' are so tough and resilient and another sweet fragrance to catch as you wander round your late winter garden. Daphne odora make a lovely mid border evergreen whose sweet perfumed flowers tone so beautiful with the pink and red hellebores around them. Viburnum bodnatense never disappoints with its fragrant buds on the bare stems of this tall resilient tough shrub. Winter box or saraccocoa another low growing plain hardy green shrub with the most prolific profusion of little white flowers that catch you with a hint of jasmine as you brush past. This is the shrub that will tolerate dry shade.
Just round the corner we have the magnolias. All budded up with plump fury buds ready to release the most flamboyant flower that date back to the dinosaurs.
Don't be a fair weather gardener we do have colour all year round.
These are just some of the shrubs. Evergreen foliage, winter stems and bark, perennials and the bulbs coming through now are a whole new story.
