Valentine’s Day Flowering Plants at Riverbanks Botanical Garden

Fragrance, form and flower are outstanding characteristics of plants in the winter walled garden at Riverbanks. Trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials are represented.

Fragrance in the Winter Garden

The sweet fragrance of winter-blooming honeysuckle shrub, Lonicera x purpusii has earned it the common name breath of spring. Creamy white waxy flowers line the brown-grey branches.

Wintersweet or Japanese allspice, Chimonanthus praecox is a 12 foot tall multi-stemmed shrub with spicy scented waxy translucent yellow cup-shaped flowers.

The evergreen shrub holly grape, Mahonia x media ‘Lionel Fortescue’ wears a top hat of bright yellow fragrant flowers with long arching racemes.

The rice paper shrub, Edgeworthia chrysantha, is interspersed throughout the winter garden where the creamy clusters of nodding buds decorate the dormant beds. The dangling buds hang from bold bare bronze stems and are set to burst open into fragrant yellow flowers before any leaves begin to show.

The majestic ornamental Japanese flowering apricots, Prunus mume, with fragrant and fragile five-petaled flowers are dropping white, pink, and red petals like confetti in celebration of the approaching spring. Prunus mume ‘Matsubara red’ has masses of double deep-red blossoms.

Form in the Winter Garden

The growth habit of shrubs and herbaceous plants catch the eye of visitors and add interest to garden design. The dormant leafless stems of many trees and shrubs are stunning when clad solely in flowers.

The rambling ways of the long green stems of winter jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum, arch, cascade, and tumble with the sparkle of bright yellow funnel-shaped flowers. When arching stems touch soil, they easily take root.

A dense yet airy red-stemmed hedge of Spiraea x arguta ‘Baby’s Breath’ is studded with miniature white flowers among the twiggy growth.

At ground level in the Orene Horton shade garden the Lenten roses, Helleborus orientalis, bloom, their nodding flower heads hiding faces blushing in shades of cream, pink, green and purple. The long-lived perennials are easy to grow and bloom throughout winter and Lent.

The dormant garden beds show signs of spring with numerous clusters of scilla, hyacinth, and daffodil green bladed foliage emerging. But the crocuses are blooming!

The early blooming snow crocus Crocus sieberi atticus ‘Firefly’ is known for its lilac color, golden throat, vigor and ease in naturalizing. The tender looking bulb babies are tough contenders in the winter garden arena.

Valentine’s Day is a favorable time to appreciate the fragrance, form and flower of midwinter at Riverbanks Botanical Garden.