February is the month when shrubs and trees that greeted winter
with bare branches and tight little buds begin opening bright
blossoms and filling neighbourhoods with fragrance. The Chinese
witch-hazel (Hamamelis mollis) is one of the most spectacular,
especially because the yellow forms of those spidery flowers are
usually exceptionally fragrant. Other witch-hazel species and
the orange or red hybrids are often non-fragrant. Witch-hazels
are generally slow-growing, tolerate many soils - and their
flowers, like most winter blooms, are long-lasting. It's
tempting to cut flowering witch-hazel branches for the house.
But these should be kept small because heavy pruning can trigger
root suckers. Another fragrant shrub that begins producing
upright yellow flower spikes in early January is Mahonia
charity. It's a prickly, stiff-looking, shade-tolerant evergreen
that can grow six feet (two metres) tall so fits well behind
shorter plants. It forms a circular plate of leaves with its
flower spikes upright in the centr