There are few plants more perfectly adapted to work effortlessly in every style. A profusion of powerfully fragrant blossoms that smell like upmarket hand cream and leaves that are flushing blood red in autumn, before turning emerald green again in the spring: Cape Jasmine
Cape Jasmine is a wide-growing shrub with sweetly-scented flowers. These jasmine plants have glossy leaves similar to gardenia. They also have ruffled, snowy white flowers a bit like baby gardenias. The scent isn't the same but it's a light, very sweet fragrance - more so at dusk.
The beauty of this shrub is it's easier to grow than gardenia - heavily in spring and then blooms on and off during the summer - colder tolerant and less attractive to bugs. It is an evergreen flowering plant - in the coffee family Rubiaceae.
Soil Type: Clay, Loam, Sand, more on the acid site
Hardiness: 8 – 11
Nandina Domestica - Called Heavenly Bamboo
This lovely Asian plant is a small semi-evergreen shrub introduced in the U.S. in the early '1800s. A plant that offers fall and winter interest to the garden with its bright red berries and burgundy leaves, in the spring with pleasant white flowers and in summer with dark evergreen foliage. The Nandina is a hardy and fast-growing plant from full sun to undergrowth and in heavy shade in a variety of moist soils.
Nandina Domestica creates an airy canopy of elegantly divided leaves on evergreen shrubs around 2m tall. With new growth that is flushed with burgundy before maturing to dark green come the autumn, the red and purple shades return with the first frosts to protect the leaves from the cold. Once warm weather returns as if by magic, the green hues spring back into the leaves as if nothing had happened.
Soil Type: Chalk, Clay, Loam, Sand
Hardiness: 6 – 9
Success in the garden starts with healthy soil. Soil—as much as water and sunlight—determines whether plants thrive or die. Getting a soil test is the best way to find out your soil pH and soil health. Soil tests can be found in nurseries, garden centers, and online.
Use the first spring days to improve the soil in your garden, and add lots of compost and natural fertilizers, such as blood meal and bone meal. A thick layer of mulch after planting shrubs keeps the soil moist and the weeds (mostly) out.
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