THE MODERN MINT BLOG
Another winter favourite, Sarcococca is a lovely plant with a lovely name to say. Sar-co-co-cca. Sarcococca. Impress your non-gardening friends by pulling this one out…. and then confusing them by calling it Christmas or Sweet box, its common name.
It makes it to Plant of the Week by virtue of its strong perfume, which can make your nose twitch with its bewitching charm. But there are many other qualities to this evergreen shrub.
It grows well in lime or acid soil.
It tolerates shade.
It is a slow grower, so doesn’t need lots of pruning.
It doesn’t suffer from pests and diseases (it can replace Buxus as an edging plant in gardens effected by blight. Sarcococca hookeriana var. humilis is the one to try for this.)
It can be used in a cottage garden or a more formal design.
It is good for cutting and taking into the house, where it will perfume a room.
It has berries for the birds.
Sounds too good to be true. So what, then, are its problems?
The flowers are…modest. Very modest. In fact, you probably won’t even notice it flowering, and will only be aware that its moment in the garden has come when the fragrance of the flower hits you from several paces away, making you search for the source of this wonderful scent. Let us not just judge by the flower power of a plant though. We can be more sagacious than that. Which brings us on to the next point…
… you might think the leaf dull (you might, even though it shines like glossy paper, reflecting all possible light and warmth there is to be found in a shady, neglected spot. A far better leaf to have working for you in your garden than the light thieving mass of a rhododendron.)
We willingly fight to advertise this plants qualities, don’t we?
What can you plant with it? Try a clump-forming fern, some strands of vinca, hydrangeas, dicentra perhaps, with a clematis growing up a wall behind it. It is a shrub that will provide valuable support to others, rather than being the star performer.
Or place around it some bulbs, like snowdrops, a variegated ivy and the flower and foliage of hellebores (as the stat attraction) and you have a simple yet restorative winter scene. Made all the more rewarding by the bounty of the Sarcococca’s scent.
For more great winter-flowering shrubs, ge tthis book!
10 Years Of Modern Mint
On Valentine’s day this year (2024) Modern Mint, the company I started when I moved to Essex to explore a fresh, contemporary approach to gardening, will be 10 years old. The cliche is time flies… but it does! So much has happened in a decade, from studying topiary with Charlotte Molesworth, to clipping all over the UK (and eventually in the USA and Sweden) to selling shears and secateurs at garden shows and hiding away my reticence to give talks about gardening and topiary to Horticultural Societies across the UK. Ten years feels a good time to mark a new …
Garden Masterclass Trailer – The Modern Topiarist
In 2022 I did a free video for Garden Masterclass, the Annie Guilfoyle and Noel Kingsley run website that is a treasure trove of the great and good of the horticultural world – well worth looking through all the wonderful talks they have available, like meadow-maker James Hitchmough or nurserywoman Rosy Hardy. They are certainly inspirational! Perfect for watching and dreaming up new ideas during the winter months… As a follow-up to my Topiary Provocations video (which you can see on Youtube for free) I was asked to do a video for their Masterclass series on how to make topiary. …
Charlotte Molesworth’s Garden In The FT
The lovely garden of my mentor Charlotte Molesworth is featured here in the Financial Times in the last week or so… She has been interviewed lots of times but I thought this was a particularly great piece, with some photos done at unusual angles and different parts… so well worth a read. For more on topiary by Charlotte Molesworth…