Daphne 'Perfume Princess'

Hi to all garden lovers,

I am growing Daphne "Perfume princess" since 2 years, in our garden near the Loire river in centr...Read Moreal France. Our soil is deep, fertile, loam. It is about 0.7 m and grows well. Its large flowers appear as soon as mid-January. Possibly due to our relatively fresh winters, with temperatures hovering between +5° C and -3°C from December to March, the scent is nice but by far not overwhelming. One has to put its nose close to the flowers to enjoy the very nice fragrance.

In terms of scent, I very much prefer Daphne x transatlantica, which blossoms repeatedly, and generously, from April to September. The oldest specimen of the garden (7 years old) is a sizeable 1.4 m wide x 1.1 m high bush and in warmer afternoons its beautiful scent can be enjoyed from as far as 10 m.! It could be that "Perfume Priness" has to grow further to fully unravel its well touted merits.

A negative is that "Perfume Princess" appears very vulnerable to late frosts. They don't kill the plant, which regenerates vigourously from the many dormant buds on its stems, but all its existing evergreen foliage and flowers were distroyed by April's -5° C frost, the worst late frost in France for the last 30 years.

This so far is our experience with this interesting recent Daphne.

Bought it as a small young plant from Eire (the original name for Ireland) two years ago. Had no difficulties with the harsh 2016 - 2017 ...Read Morewinter when it stood -13C (10F). But you have to provide support for the branches when covered with snow. It has doubled in size in the two years and is about 50cm now.Started flowering in early January in spite of freezing temperatures down to -5C at night. The frangrance is slight to medium, you must kneel down and put your nose in a flower to get it and it seems it is used up with a sniff or two. Reminds of lilly of the valley but not as sweet. In summer seems to have good drought tolerance.

Update. Early March.
Lowest temp. of -11C/12F burnt the top growth with flowers which were above the snow cover.

Update. Late Sept. After dealing with the heat and drought of the summer it is drooping its leaves even though it is watered and it looks like it is about to die.

'Perfume Princess' - bred by Mark Jury, NZ - has a significantly larger flower than comparable odora types, the flowering season is also ...Read Morea great deal longer, and the plant itself is noticeably more robust than other odoras. It also has the capacity to flower down the stem when growing strongly. And of course it smells like daphne - gorgeous!