And it is about time for winter-blooming plants…
Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ started blooming in september, and will easily go on for months, and my Witch Hazel ‘Jelena’ is showing its first petals.

But another really nice shrub in these cold days is the fragrant Shrubby Honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima). You shouldn’t expect large flowers like our native wild Honeysuckle has, in fact, they are very small… but they are so fragrant!
In really cold winters, like we had last year, the flowers are fairly prominent: with longer lasting cold spells the shrub looses all its leaves. But since we have a very mild autumn this year, it has kept almost all its greenery. And when the temperatures aren’t going to drop soon, it will still have most of its foliage when the new leaves are budding.

It’s a slow-growing shrub, that eventually reaches a hight of about two meters (6 ft), and grows to a width of about three meters (9-10 ft), but that takes quite some years. The shrub is most beautiful if left unpruned, so give it some space!
If you don’t like the open space around it in the first years, you could do with higher growing annuals and perennials, or eventually perennials. And of course you can fool yourself by telling that you are going to take out a neighboring shrub that you’re planting now ‘only until the other one grows a bit taller’. But I can guarantee that within a few years you (or your partner) took to much of a liking for that ‘just temporary shrub’, with the result that neither shrub is at its best.
I didn’t make that mistake, but me too, I planted this Honeysuckle on the wrong spot: It’s growing about 50 m (50yards) from my house, on a spot where we don’t come every day. And because the most interesting thing about this shrub is its fragrance in winter, it should be next to your door, or at least on a spot you pass on a daily base.
And now, I only enjoy this delicate scent on weekend-days…