Just coming into flower now, the winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) covers itself in creamy-white, highly fragrant flowers. Like most winter-flowering species, its scent is so strong that it carries for some distance to guide in those pollinators that are still on the wing.

In winter, flowers need to be perfumed with the sort of scent that travels and lingers in the air, and this is why nearly all winter-flowering plants are highly scented, with small flowers better able to withstand the weather than big, blowsy ones.

Left to its own devices winter honeysuckle grows into a large shrub, but I grow mine as a climber on a trellis. It also makes a lovely cut flower, so you can cut a few sprigs to enjoy inside if the weather out is too much to bear!