When I worked in Milan I would sometimes walk past one of those high walls which people seem to love; Ive nevr quite understood why privacy is so protected. I’m thinking of the bungalows in Brianza surrounded by high walls and comparing them to English houses with (mostly) beautiul gardens ondisplay and a low wall that you can chat to your neighbour over. I think it’s marvellous to peek into peoples gardens and share a little bit of green, but no, they’ve got the Fort Knox syndrome. Anyway, sometimes you would get this tantalising whiff of glorious perfume (you can’t lock a perfume in) and because of those walls you could never be quite sure where it was coming from. It was of course ,the Winter Sweet a small tree, fairly inconspicuous with straggly branches and modest flowers, but my goodness the perfum! So eventually I managed to buy this dream plant Chimonanthus (Winter flower) praecox (very early) descriptive if you will but its common English name Winrter Sweet beats that mouthfull for sheer poetry.
I planted mine just outside my bedroom window and for the next four years ,lived in hope.Last year for the first time,it had a few sparse lowers, this year it is not covered in flowers but there are uite a lot. We’ve had a lot of rain this January, so not favourable for wafting perfume;I would go and bury my nose in the flowers.But now it is sending out its fragrance, never quite where you expect it to be.I must make the most of it because it Because it is soon to be overtaken by my Sarcoccoca and Edgeworthia.
English that grows 