Years ago, too many to recall, the stream and the third of four small ponds in the rear garden were constructed while my wife spent a long weekend visiting her grandmother in Pittsburgh. The precise details are long forgotten, but the materials were brought home on Friday afternoon with the pond dug and completed for the surprise when Barbara returned Sunday evening.

Shortly thereafter, the narrow area between the pond and stone path was planted with several small sweetbox (Sarcococca hookeriana var humilis), a yellow leafed Japanese Forest grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aurea’), and the centerpiece, a ‘Carol Mackie’ daphne (Daphne x burkwoodi ‘Carol Mackie’, below). The Forest grass and sweetbox were quite small, but fortunately the daphne was a rather plump shrub.

I was aware at the time that the sweetbox would be very slow to fill, so here we can jump past years of mild disappointment to the recent decade when its slowly suckering stems crowded both the daphne and Forest grass into submission. Remnants of the grass were transplanted, but the daphne did what daphnes do and died in a huff.

Today, the sweetbox has become a spreading, rounded green mass constrained by the stream to one side and by the removal of suckering stems that attempt to creep through the stone path to the other. While the small, late winter blooms are a sensory joy to those who can smell, this prominent space would be more ornamental with more colorful or textural choices. But, it took a long time to get here. I must take another decade or so to enjoy the reward of the years of waiting.

The flowers of sweetbox don’t make much of a show, but like a few other blooms they’re a signal of spring’s arrival. Several branches have been snipped to be set in a small vase in the kitchen. Even indoors, I doubt I’ll be able to smell the very fragrant blooms.