Few flowers smell as sweet as sweet daphne. It blooms in late winter and early spring, filling the air with sweetness. You can’t smell it and be sad. A native of southern China, it is popular in Japan. The Korean name, “churihyang” means a thousand mile scent, a very fitting name as its fragrance carries a long way.

I remember the first time I biked past one and had to stop to see what flower smelled so wonderful so early in the spring. I asked the woman at the house where it was blooming, what it was, and she told me and said I could take a cutting. “Stick it in the ground and it will grow,” she said. I thanked her, but since I didn’t have a garden at the time, I left without a cutting. Now I have a large bush which is in full bloom.