Winter Jasmine

A Little Winter Colour

flower photography

It always delights me that some flowers can tolerate rough weather to give us a bit of cheering colour at this time of year. Even if the frost eventually proves too much for the tiny flowers of this winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum), there are lots of new buds which will soon open to continue the show.

These flowers are especially welcome when almost everything else seems dormant in the coldest days of winter. They encourage me to take a wander round the garden so that I can see them up close and enjoy their exuberant colour.

Unlike other jasmines, winter jasmine isn’t a twining plant. Instead it has very thin and floppy stems which can be easily trained against a fence or trellis. Or you can do what I’ve done – just allow it to weave its way through other shrubs for support. (That does get rather untidy!)

Although it’s said to be an excellent winter nectar-source, I haven’t yet seen bees on it. Perhaps there will be in early spring, as this shrub has a long flowering period. (From December or January right through into March.)

But whether the bees like it or not, I certainly do. These little flowers are brightening an otherwise dark area of the garden like a sprinkling of yellow stars. They bring some joyful colour to the garden as it waits for spring.

Winter jasmine flowers

26 thoughts on “A Little Winter Colour”

  1. I didn’t know that there’s a winter jasmine. It’s beautiful, and it certainly would be cheering to have that in the garden at this time of year. Does it also have a nice fragrance? My suspicion is that it doesn’t, but I don’t have any reason to think that except that if I were living in that cold weather, and putting out that beautiful color, I wouldn’t have any energy left to produce fragrance!

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    1. The winter jasmine doesn’t have any fragrance but the Viburnum bodnantense from last week’s post does, so we do get a little fragrance. It’s not strong, but that may depend on the position and the weather because I’ve come across the same shrub in other gardens and noticed the fragrance more.

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    1. It does make a difference to have a few things in flower. Hubby has suggested we take a trip around some of our favourite garden centres/nurseries tomorrow – so maybe we’ll end up with some more winter colour… 🙂

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  8. It surprises me to learn about a plant that flowers from December through March in so northern a climate. I see from Wikipedia that winter jasmine is native to China, where its name means ‘the flower that welcomes Spring’.

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