Jasmine’s not just for winter

The winter jasmine: It grows, totally neglected, up against a cold, shady wall facing into the east light with a determination that equals the biting winds.

EVEN on the coldest days of winter there is always something in the garden that will lift the spirits. With no weeding, staking, pricking out, or watering to be done, we can all take time to really look at whatever plucky plants are flowering.

Here, behind the bungalow I can see a few miniature posies of Viburnum, delicate hardy cyclamen and, most captivating of all, an early Lenten rose. But today my eyes peep further into the gloom and settle in a nearby garden where a specimen of winter Jasmine has me drooling. It grows, totally neglected, up against a cold, shady wall facing into the east light with a determination that equals the biting winds that blow in from that quarter.

Here’s a shrub of perfectly mounded proportions which every winter plot should boast for it covers itself in summer with small green leaves and at this time of year, masses of star-shaped butter yellow blooms. I grew it to perfection once, but why, oh why did I ever tear it out? Was it because of familiarity? It’s hard to understand now how a cheap, easily sourced, and totally obliging reliable plant could be rooted out and forgotten.

I may today be the only garden writer in the country without a specimen of Jasmine nudiflorum but even given my omission, why don’t I see it more often? In another six weeks or so every square yard of what passes for a garden will have foaming Forsythia to boast of, but from November to March not a jasmine, bar my neighbours, do I see. I used to love the way it spilled and arched forward from its planting station in the carport, how it rooted of its own accord if allowed tip the soil, and how it bloomed from autumn right through to spring. During winter, the slightest rise in temperature would tempt its red-tinted buds to open to whatever insects were out on the wing. And they were produced in such numbers that when a hard frost put an end to the display a new crop was always ready. The one attribute this plant loses out on is perfume. A blade of grass, a snowflake, an autumn leaf has more scent than nudiflorum, but even so, do not despise the ordinariness of this winter wonder. It is a dependable standby, an easy-to-please, grow-anywhere climber of modest drooping nature. Use it as a tightly clipped feature around your porch or allow it cascade as a golden waterfall in whichever part of the garden you choose.

Use it in formal fashion (up the walls and around the windows of houses) if you so desire, or grow it in a sprawling tangle like I did. Either way, it is beautiful and needs absolutely nothing. No special diet, no sprays, not even sunshine. For all that, it needs one little bit of important cultural attention.

When the long, whippy growths of this most obliging plant have finished blooming in March it should be cut back really hard so that fresh shoots are immediately encouraged. These will be the ones to carry the blooms the following winter and spring. As you reduce its bulk, look for shoots, which have layered into the ground.

Give a few to friends, then, the chances are I’ll see a lot more of it as I travel around.