Mar 9, 2019
Spring perfume, jinchoge
The days are getting longer, and the threat of snow in the Kanto area has passed. In the last few weeks, I smelled winter sweet and plum blossoms. I noticed Kawazu sakura, the earliest blooming variety, is already full of pink flowers in Tokyo.
This week, on a stroll through Shibuya, I smelled this sweet perfume, the flowers of jinchoge, or daphne odora. Jinchoge was imported from China long ago, and is grown as hedge plants. The brush is evergreen, and has pink and white flowers in clusters.
The candy sweetness of this flower makes up for sakura blossoms which don’t have a strong scent.
It is at its best just as the school year finishes.It’s such a nice pick me up after winter and the exam grind.
2 Comments
edthethe
on Mar 13
I just bought one of these for my garden! It's lovely
TonetoEdo
on Mar 13
@edthethe Nice! They can get quite big. I’ve seen them a meter tall. While researching jinchoge I found out they don’t last long, just a few years, but they’ll bloom well in their first year.