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carpeted with the things and the air filled with the faint scent of their flowers. That, combined with low rising sunbeams and the lettuce-coloured young leaves, is one of the most spectacular sights you could ever wish to witness.I have been unable

This weekend, I have been mostly cutting back catmint. Having spent much of last week at The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, I returned home on Thursday (feeling somewhat jaded), just in time for temperatures below 10ºC and battering rains. The catmint

foolish as to think that spring is here - we are more than likely to get whacked by frost or snow before then - but at least it is showing willing.One of the best things about this time of year is scent. Flowers are pretty rare but there are a few plants

of that fabulous scent: the philadelphus, or mock orange.There are a number of different varieties, all deciduous with white flowers and unremarkable foliage. In the first garden I had that actually possessed any soil (the first two were just concrete yards) I

is the Latin and they have the most divine scent. The secret is to grow the long-stemmed Spencer varieties and to keep on picking them: pretty much every day. If you stop and let them start seeding then they will flower much less vigorously.But, I don't want

, your safest bet is the white double Dianthus 'Mrs Sinkins' which smells like the wrists of wood nymphs. It's one of the old garden pinks (great scent, short flowering season, most of them about 30cm high) and was originally bred in 1868 by John Sinkins

but you may feel a small part of the January blues fall away.If anybody should get them all right then I will award them a loud and prolonged round of virtual applause - and a huge bunch of heavily scented imaginary flowers. Answers in a couple of weeks.

shade.Sarcococca confusa (Christmas box)A winter flowering, highly scented shrub. Compact in size, Sarcococca is ideal for planting near a pathway or gate.Viburnum tinus (laurustinus)This is a workhorse of a shrub, which has pinkish-white flowers

candidates - lots of little bulbs cropping up all over the place, like snowdrops, crocus and Iris reticulata - and wonderfully scented Hamamelis mollis, Sarcococca and Daphne bholua.The winter stems were also looking particularly fine - in particular

snail' but I just cannot learn to 'love a forsythia'.Please dig them out and plant something else. If you must have a yellow shrub flowering now, then try Chimonanthus praecox; it bears pale, lemon meringue-yellow flowers and a scent that reminds one