Perennials are usually easy to slot into borders as fillers – they weave through other plants or slowly make a clump so are no trouble. Shrubs, on the other hand need more careful selection and placing because they are permanent features and many will eventually grow quite large.
We like to select shrubs with more than one interesting feature and through the summer months, when we use the garden for entertaining and to enjoy in the evenings, scent is high on the list of priorities. Philadelphus (Mock Orange Blossom) are quiet plants for much of the year but come into their own in June with clouds of sweetly scented blooms that smell like bubble gum! One of my earliest gardening memories is the scent of this plant in my Mother’s garden and I would not be without them in our garden! They are such rewarding plants and easy to grow in part shade and moist soil.
Abelia is another shrub that has plenty going for it. Semi evergreen, the plant can be pruned as hard as you like in spring and will shoot back and produce clusters of sweetly scented flowers for weeks from July onwards. The scent will waft around the garden on still days and attracts plenty of bees who love to disappear in the flowers. Our plant is A. ‘Francis Mason’ with golden yellow leaves that contrast well with the pale pink flowers. Last spring it received a serious prune to remove the damage done to the leaves by the strong winter winds and now looks better than ever! It is jostling for space with a Honey Spurge (Euphorbia mellifera) which has just finished flowering and is full of spiky green seed pods which will soon dry out and start to explode throwing the seeds far and wide! The curious reddish brown flowers of the Spurge are strongly honey scented and a beautiful site on the neat, rounded shrub through May. The long leaves create a tropical feel and the plant loves full sun and moist soil, so appreciates a mulch of my garden compost each spring!
Butterflies seem scarce at the moment but I hope that once the Buddleja begin to flower, they will flock to them. These spectacular plants are winners through the summer. The drooping panicles of flowers are beautiful to look at and the sweet scent is almost overwhelming when you are near the plants. Butterflies seem drunk on the nectar sitting on the flowers for ages refusing to fly off even when I get very close to them with my camera!
Although not a shrub, Honeysuckle is another winner for summer scent. The plant that we had in the garden was badly damaged in the winter when a trellis snapped so I have taken it out and will soon be visiting Notcutts for a replacement! As well as the intoxicating evening scent, this is an important food plant for many pollinating insects including moths who feed at night.
For now I am back to training my Sweet Peas which are doing well on their bamboo wigwam and should start to flower very soon for yet more summer scent.