Despite last Monday’s snowfall the ‘Northern Gold’ forsythia in my garden is now in full bloom. It wasn’t the first shrub to show colour however. The Daphne mezereum, February Daphne, beat it by about two weeks.
The bright rosy-purple blooms began to emerge back in March and when I spotted them I was immediately there on my knees inhaling the sweetly fragrant blooms. A few sprigs cut off and brought indoors are enough to charge an entire room with perfume.
Daphne has a reputation as a shrub that is difficult to propagate. D. mezereum is not too amenable to increasing its numbers by cuttings, but the seed sows readily in fertile ground. The bright red seeds are produced in summer and it seems that any which fall off at that time germinate without fail. Indeed, my plant is a seedling of Mom’s plant, which is a seedling of the original plant I remember admiring as a small child. I recall three or four of my co-workers also received seedlings at the same time as I did. The seeds, by the way, are poisonous.
Daphne cneorum, the Rock Daphne, is the most well-known species. The entire nursery in our garden centre is bathed in its fragrance later in April when they bloom. It makes a wonderful small flowering shrub, planted in a location where you can enjoy its fragrance as you walk by.
They are, however, one of those shrubs which do not accommodate you, the gardener. You must bend to its whims and desires or else it will not survive. They are quite particular about soil. It must be well-drained, moist, with nearly neutral pH and it should contain some organic matter.
Daphne cneorum will tolerate sun if the soil conditions are right. They respond well to a light shearing after blooming. This will produce a second lighter flush of blooms and keep the centre from going bare.
One thing you must know about Rock Daphne is that they are “high risk and high reward.” They will grow happily for years and then suddenly, usually right after flowering, they will collapse and die. By suddenly I mean almost overnight. One day green, and the next, brown.
But, they are decidedly wonderful when they’re in full bloom, a carpet of rosy-pink clusters of bloom with that incredible fragrance. Like I said, high risk and high reward. Daphne x burkwoodi ‘Carol Mackie’ is an attractive hybrid variety which sports delicate cream edges to the green foliage and fragrant light pink flowers. It grows up to about three feet high.
Daphne caucasica is one of the parents of the burkwoodi cross. It’s a deciduous shrub, growing to about five feet high. One of its best features is that it keeps throwing out fragrant white clusters of bloom throughout the spring and summer, not just in April.
Even the best of gardeners have endured a sudden daphne collapse, so don’t feel poorly when it happens to you. Enjoy them while you have them. Take deep breaths of their blooms and don’t dwell on the fact that they will surely perish one day.
