Tag Archive for: Daphne Perfume Princess

4 fragrant flower garden ideas

Daphne Perfume Princess™ packs an impressive punch in terms of perfume power. This one is the classic pink version and it’s easily the easiest daphne of all to grow.

Music and perfume pack the most powerful punches when it comes to emotional hooks. Remember dancing under the stars on a jasmine-scented evening? If you hear that song and catch the same perfume on the breeze, you’re transported straight back in time. Rather than wait for chance, it’s easy to create your own happy-scented-memory bubble just by growing perfumed plants – on a window ledge, balcony, patio or in the soil. Here are 4 fragrant flower garden ideas to get you started: then just plant and take a deep breath….   

1. The one and only Perfume Princess. In the cooler months there’s no other flower that has the same intense perfume as a daphne. And of the daphne options you’ll find at the garden centre, no daphne compares with Daphne Perfume Princess™. There’s a snow white version, and a classic pink and both have the waxy, almost crystalline florets in larger-than-normal clusters. Daphne Perfume Princess is versatile too: being happy to grow in a container and stay relatively modest in size, or to grow into a very nice bushy shrub if planted directly into the soil. With this much flexibility it’s easy to position your daphne right where your nose can enjoy the perfume:  in a pot on the balcony; or planted in the garden right beside a welcoming garden bench.

perfume power
Daphne Perfume Princess™ also comes in crystalline white with just as much perfume power.

2. Spring bulbs that catch our breath. Who doesn’t stop to put their nose into a pot of flowering bulbs in springtime. It’s super easy to plant your own to have on the balcony or even to bring indoors to sit on the table at lunchtime. In late winter, just pick a container, fill it a third full of free draining potting mix, then tuck your bulbs in and cover with the rest of the potting mix. Sit it out where it will get rain and sun, and before long you’ll spot little green spikes nudging upwards. Which bulbs do you choose? Perfumed ones of course, like the small narcissus aka jonquils. In yellow, cream, splashes of orange and soft pinks there are heaps to choose from. Or freesias, with their trumpets of scent that come in rainbow colours. Hyacinths are lovely and their fragrance is why people sit them on their kitchen windowsills in late winter. To see more options go online and search with ‘perfume’ and ‘bulbs’…

Some of the best and simplest spring bulbs to grow are the narcissus aka jonquils. These are paperwhites and they smell delicious.

3. Fragrant Roses are brilliant. And probably the easiest, best performing perfumed rose to plant and grow these days is the Flower Carpet® Fragrant Shrub rose (known as the Showpiece Fragrant Shrub rose in the southern hemisphere and Canada). These roses don’t need expert pruning or spraying, they grow into a nice green bushy bush and produce fairytale, large, fragrant roses. There are five colours to choose from (with more on the way), and you can grow them in the ground or in a container. Again, a terrific option for balcony, patio or a whole easy-care rose garden full of them.

perfume power
These days we’re lucky to be able to plant super easy to grow rose bushes like Berry which is one of the new Flower Carpet® fragrant shrub roses bred by the same family that created the original Flower Carpet® ground cover roses.

4. Wisteria wonderland. If you want to create a springtime scented show-stopper moment, nothing beats wisteria. Purple (over white) packs the most fragrance, and you can train it so that the flower racemes dangle just overhead in a scented cloud. Look around your place and plan where you’ll train it as the vine grows. Up and over the back door; over a pergola to shade the patio; along the balcony’s balustrade so that you’ll be wrapped in a shawl of perfume and be screened from passers-by.

Hanging clusters of dreamy-scented flowers – what’s not to love about wisteria?

Is Daphne Perfume Princess the best? (Yes!)

Daphne Perfume Princess
Go and do your research and you’ll quickly see why Daphne Perfume Princess™ is the best.

Question: Since 2016, what daphne is the best one to plant? (Hint: think royalty…) The answer is the Daphne Perfume Princess™ which was released that year.  And proof that she reigns supreme comes from the fact that she’s now been around long enough to prove that every compliment paid to Her Highness is based on fact. If you have Daphne Perfume Princess growing in your garden you’ll be nodding your head as you read through these absolute truths: she grows into a nice evergreen bushy shaped shrub; she’s easy to grow, thrives with no care and is a robustly healthy plant; she produces lots of flowers over a good stretch of time, and they are big; they’re also super fragrant with a citrus overtone that’s extra special. To push the point even further, she’s won these awards: 2018 Best New Ornamental Plant Variety, Horticulture Week, UK; 2018 Gold Medal, Florall Award, Belgium; 2016 Plant of the Year, Australian Nursery and Garden Industry Association. So there you have it. She’s the best. Fact. And here’s one more fact… a white Daphne Perfume Princess has been bred to join her pink flushed sister.

Daphne Perfume Princess White
Daphne Perfume Princess™ also comes in a white form.

Maybe you didn’t know about Daphne Perfume Princess until now. You’ll probably be interested to have her pointed out to you when you’re next down at the garden centre (believe it, she’ll be there). And then you’ll think – I want this daphne because I know I can grow it, and I’ve always wanted to grow one but the old ones were too fussy and not very pretty (if we’re honest). So here are a few ideas if you need inspiration on the where…

IN A CONTAINER: this is a great move if you don’t have much room or you tend to move house a bit. Daphne Perfume Princess will grow happily in a pot out on a balcony, on a patio, or beside the front door. Outdoors is the go – full sun through to part shade – you can always bring her in for the day to spice up the house. Pick a pot that’s generous and use potting mix to avoid waterlogging. Throw in a few spring bulbs and you’ll end up with a visual treat. Simple.

A LUXE HEDGE: if you’re about to plant a hedge, or what they call a foundation planting around the base of your home, think about using Daphne Perfume Princess. The way this wonderful daphne grows means you’d have a nice bushy green line of plants even when she’s not in flower. And when Daphne Perfume Princess is in flower, that fragrant bliss is yours!

BY THE BENCH: do you have a garden seat? Somewhere to stop for a break mid morning? If it’s well positioned it catches the sun in winter and enjoys dappled shade from a deciduous tree in summer. And from mid winter to late spring it needs to be enveloped by the scent of daphne. One plant will do it, tucked in nearby. Easy.

Daphne Perfume Princess
Here’s everything you need to make your magically scented spot in the garden – a bench + a daphne.
Daphne Perfume Princess flowers are very big (6cm = almost 2.5 inches).
Daphne Perfume Princess
Take a look at the nice bushy form it grows into – super useful in the garden.
garden must-haves

3 essentials for garden design

3 essentials for garden design
In France, Villandry’s gardens would be brutally static if not for the addition of colour. Adding movement and perfume are two other garden must-haves.

There’s a simple secret behind the great gardens – they hook us in via our senses. If you think your garden is a bit ho hum, here are 3 essentials for garden design that will transform your garden into a joyful space full of fragrance, movement and colour.

1. Perfume: Even blindfolded, you should be able to tell that you’re in a garden. You should be able to enjoy the plants growing around you via deep, delicious breaths. Take a few good lungs-full and if you can’t detect a perfumed breeze, better head off to the garden centre. To make your life easier, spend ten minutes doing some internet research to put a list together of perfumed plants like lilac, roses or viburnum. Can’t be bothered doing the research? Then just ask for the queen of all fragrant plants, Daphne Perfume Princess™. Daphne is a small evergreen shrub that covers itself in waxy super-fragrant flowers in late winter and early spring. Daphne Perfume Princess is the extraordinarily well-bred version of a daphne, one that every garden should include because she’s luscious, lovely and easy to grow. Oh, and you’ll be completely astonished at the heady perfume she’ll toss out onto the breezes.

Nothing makes as big an impact as walking through a fragrant garden and a plant like Daphne Perfume Princess™ will completely transform a walk down even the most ordinary garden path.

2. Movement: Each time you look out the window at your garden, does everything look like a pic rather than a video? Nothing’s moving? Even when there’s been a wind warning? There are a lot of gardens like this simply because static landscapes are usually low maintenance if also pretty dull. So if you have a space filled with topiary, yuccas and succulents, here’s how to make that cardboard cut-out landscape dance. Plant strappy plants. Grasses, cordylines, agapanthus. Whatever looks good to you is fine as long as it’s flexible enough to wave around in the breeze. Dot them through your landscape and when you next look out the window, you’ll be looking at a garden that’s come to life.

3 essentials for garden design
At Wisley in the UK, grasses bring wildlife and breeze-borne movement to the gardens. Adding clumping grasses to a rigid planting creates instant magic.

3.Colour: So many gardens are filled with a predictable set of green plants as part of a plan to be safe and inoffensive. Which is fine until you start to feel starved of colour. This is the easiest garden fix of all. Drive to the garden centre and fill your car with whatever takes your fancy. Seedlings will give you instant colour even if they only last a season: pansies, poppies, sunflowers, marigolds and sweet peas. Flowering shrubs will hang in there for the longer term: roses, camellias, bottlebrushes, hibiscus. Or use foliage colour rather than flowers: coleus, bromeliads, cannas (Tropicanna® cannas are the best). Plant your new bright plant friends in wherever there’s room and the original green framework will help bring the look (and the various colours) together.

Canna Tropicanna®, with its bright, multi-coloured foliage, is sure to add colour to your garden.

Why we love Daphne Perfume Princess

why we love Daphne Perfume Princess
Most people spot Daphne Perfume Princess™ because of the massive flowers.

Let’s be honest… it’s easy to see why we love Daphne Perfume Princess. She’s a gorgeous, heady-scented Daphne and there is absolutely no way anyone could describe her as fine-framed or fussy. If you see a Daphne Perfume Princess™ growing alongside a traditional daphne you will be shocked: she looks like a buff supermodel sitting beside a seven year old wannabe ballerina.

Daphne Perfume Princess™ is an unapologetically lush, dense bush with larger leaves, larger scented flowers and more of them. It’s also ridiculously easy to grow since it thrives without any effort from us. When you know all this, it’s not hard to understand why this plant is massively popular, thanks to…

1: Those big flowers… which really are huge, being four times bigger than an old fashioned Daphne. Not only are the flowers themselves larger but they also grow along the stems in clusters. And while we usually enjoy Daphne over a few weeks in late winter, Daphne Perfume Princess produces her flower show from mid winter through to late spring. Strangely she sometimes flowers at other times – which is a bonus – but regardless of when, the Daphne Perfume Princess scent is heady, glorious and with a citrus undertone.

why we love Daphne Perfume Princess
Ok, this is a picture of a bush – a very nice, dense green bush. But what’s special about this bush is that it is actually a Daphne but obviously not an old-style straggly Daphne. And that’s because this is the all-new, improved and totally wonderful Daphne Perfume Princess™.

2: Those big leafy bushes. It’s a good idea to pay attention to how any plant in your garden looks all year around. Who wants an awkward, rangy plant with sparse foliage when you can have the same Daphne perfume hit from a better all-rounder plant? This is especially true when it comes to Daphne because we tend to plant them where we can smell them: near the front door or beside a garden bench. And since these positions are usually very visible, having a lushly foliaged green bush to look at rather than the usual underwhelming old style Daphne is a plus.

why we love Daphne Perfume Princess
Look at this little fellow. So young and still such a go-getter. Just look at all those roots and a flower! No guesses what this Daphne is: Daphne Perfume Princess™.

3: That lust for life. Daphne Perfume Princess is precocious – a fast developer. The nurserymen who produce these plants see this daily in the way young plants leap out of their pots ahead of other Daphne varieties, or even spring into flower when they are still juvenile. These plants get on with the business of growing into lusty, healthy flower swamped bushes from the absolute get-go. And they do it with very few demands on us. Water a new plant in once you’ve planted it, and then when it finishes flowering, throw a handful of slow release fertiliser around the base of the plant … if you remember.