Daphne odora aureomarginata

I planted one of these at our last house, and it rapidly made a sizeable shrub; the perfume of the blooms in the late winter and early spring was so strong and enticing that people regularly asked me what it was. It even survived its main stem splitting when the canopy was overburdened by a heavy snow fall one winter - I tied the two halves back together with an old pair of tights and it healed very nicely. So I thought, not unreasonably, that it was an easy thing to grow.

When we moved here (only a couple of miles down the road from where we lived before) I planted one, and it promptly died. A couple of years later I tried again, and this specimen made it through its first winter.... and then died. I decided it was time to admit defeat.

Last summer though, I dug out a new flower bed in the sheltered corner between the neighbours' fence and the retaining wall of the patio, and as I was planting it mainly in pinks and creams I thought I'd give Daphne odora aureomarginata one last try. And after a winter that's been dreary but not especially harsh it's still there, and flowering.

You'd probably have snickered (though I'm sure sympathetically) if you'd seen me getting this shot. Bear in mind that the shrub is in the middle of quite a deep bed, which I didn't want to walk on because it was sodden from overnight rain - and I'd decided to use a short lens and an extension tube instead of doing the sensible thing and shooting with a telephoto. Also, it's still small and the blooms are no more than 10cm above the soil; and though in theory I can hang my camera upside-down from the bottom of the central post of my tripod I've never actually done it, and for some reason this afternoon it seemed like too much of a mission. So instead, I put a cake box on the soil with a folded fleece blanket on the top in lieu of the bean bag I need but don't possess, and the camera balanced on top with the screen angled so I could see it from my elegant position draped across the top of the patio wall... and faffed about with distances and angles (with much grunting and groaning, and therapeutic use of creative Anglo-Saxon) for about 15 minutes. Without getting one usable shot. Then the camera battery ran out. By the time I'd recharged it the light was going, and my temper had already left - so it was lucky that I then got a couple of reasonable shots pretty quickly.

I just wish that you could experience the wonderful smell of these flowers, as I did with my face in the middle of the shrub!