Since I’m always gushing about my favorite plants, I figured I’d start a new series here at North Coast Gardening to highlight all my favorites. This is the first.
Sarcococca ruscifolia or Fragrant Sweet Box
This unassuming little shade shrub is one that people often don’t notice at first. There’s nothing particularly showy about its graceful arching stems, deep green leaves, or the tiny white flowers that hang from its branches in winter.
But when those small blooms open, people walk around sniffing all the big, showy flowers in the area, wondering where that glorious fragrance is coming from! After the flowers, Fragrant Sweet Box begins creating pretty little red berries which hang prettily off each stem. The red berries soon turn to black, and the shrub creates a gentle show for months on end.
Fragrant Sweet Box is deer resistant, evergreen, gets about 3-6’ tall in time (a lot of time, she’s a slow grower!), and is one of the few plants that will tolerate deep, dark shade. She doesn’t mind a bit of pruning to keep her to size, and all she asks for is reasonably good drainage in winter (what lady likes having soggy feet?) and a bit of summer water. She thrives in USDA Zones 7-9.
I think Sarcococca is the epitome of grace. She’s always beautiful and has many fine qualities, yet doesn’t thrust herself into the limelight and is above the gaudy displays and fripperies many plants put on to get attention. Really, how many plants bloom in winter? And are fragrant then? And will take the darkest of shade with nary a wishful stretch into the light? Her simple beauty makes all the other plants look good by association.
Grab one for that shady corner where nothing seems to work. She will gently espalier herself against a wall or form a neatly arching shrub, provide some winter fragrance, and get you through the doldrums of very early spring with her cheerful berries.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I love Sarcococca! What a simple, beautiful, fragrant evergreen plant. I just replaced my gargantuan viburnums in my foundation beds with Sarcococca. I love the size, glossy leaves, upright growth habit…everything. I have them planted with curly sedge, huckleberry, euphorbia, a huge tree peony and some other things.
I love the idea of this series. I’ll be back!
I particularly love these in the winter when they are in bloom and nothing else is as fragrant.
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Sarcococca. Just saying it makes me smile. You and I are SO similar – this, too, is right up there with my top 5 favorite plants!! I always try and plant it near shady doorways so folks can smell it in the late winter when they go in and out of their homes. I have one by my own front door and every year the mailman just loves smelling it – sometimes I even clip a branch of it for him to carry around in his truck that day….
Well maybe I better get my face out of the roses and check this Sarococca out..cool word besides…sounds lovely. I think grace is one of the qualities I love most in a plant
Aww, so glad to see my beloved Sarcococca getting some love!!
Jayme, oh my goodness, lovely planting companion ideas! And Stevie, I so agree on that fragrance. Rebecca, I am so glad to be your plant-love twin!! Your article on Francoa made my heart sing. Cindy, I think they’d go lovely with those gorgeous Fuchsias you carry in the nursery…
Gen,
I’m looking forward to following along with this series but I am disappointed the first shrub is not hardy for me. Here in southwestern CT (zone 6), our available sweetbox is S. hookeriana, the groundcover sweetbox. While I’ve never used it for a client, and don’t have any in my own garden, I may have to seek it out since it’s more fragile cousin, S. ruscifolia, definitely sounds interesting.
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