Beautiful yellow fall color reveals pale yellow blooms beginning on the much-loved wintersweet tree in the Fragrance Courtyard at Lan Su.

The December cold has slowly crept in, seeping the garden in the feeling of winter truly on its way. Although most other flowers are long gone, Chimonanthus praecox, known more commonly as wintersweet or 臘梅 the “wax plum,” is just starting its most fantastic show of blooms. Its genus name, Chimonanthus comes from the Greek cheimon meaning “winter” and anthus meaning “flower.” The species name praecox is Greek for “very early.” Someone really hit the nail on the head when naming this one!

Due to its beauty and unusually scented fragrance, wintersweet is one of the most popular flowers of winter in the Jiangnan region of China (Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang Provinces). It is planted heartily throughout urban green spaces and alongside canal pedestrian paths in much of Suzhou and Hangzhou. The landscape architects making this decision are top-notch since nothing beats the enjoyment of taking a winter walk and getting a whiff of the deeply scented wintersweet.  

The petals of the flowers themselves are also most interesting. They are waxy, as the  Chinese transliteration “wax plum” suggests. It blooms seasonally adjacent to the plum tree, and thus is historically used as a stand-in for Chinese plum (Prunus mume) when it is not available.

One of two of our garden’s wintersweet, blooming adjacent to the Moon Gate. The other wintersweet is located in our NW exterior bed.

In paintings, you will often encounter wintersweet paired with heavenly bamboo, Nandina domestica. Heavenly bamboo is laden with red berries in early winter and pairs well with these yellow blooms as red symbolizes happiness and good fortune and yellow symbolizes gold and riches. Sometimes the wintersweet will be found paired with nandina and Buddhist pine (Podocarpus macrophyllus) to create an alternate “Three Friends of Winter” trio. The heavenly bamboo 天竹, is a substitute for bamboo. The wax plum is a substitute for plum. The Buddhist pine 羅漢松, is a substitute for pine.

Perhaps my most favorite courtyard of the Master of the Nets garden in Suzhou in May 2024. You can see two small but very lush wintersweet trees (large pointed green leaves) on the right- and left-hand sides. A very mature lacebark pine shades the courtyard.

I hope the end of 2025 is filled with warmth and flowers. Remember, if your garden doesn’t have much in-bloom at this time of year, you can change that! Take a stroll at Lan Su and discover the phenomenonal fragrance of wintersweet and the abundance of other flowering (and fragrant!) specimens like sweetbox, loquat, and sasanqua camellias. Take note of what you like so you can pin down one at a local nursery or at Lan Su’s very-own Garden Shop.

Hope to see you in the garden!