Jasminum nudiflorum

Common name: Winter Jasmine

Description: Jasminum nudiflorum — winter jasmine — is one of the most reliably cheerful plants in the British garden, producing a generous flush of bright, butter-yellow flowers on bare green stems from November through to March, often at the coldest and most barren point of the year. Unlike summer jasmine, it is not fragrant, but its willingness to flower through frost, wind, and grey winter skies more than compensates. The slender, arching green stems are attractive in their own right and the plant responds enthusiastically to hard pruning immediately after flowering, keeping it productive and well shaped year after year.

Other benefits: flowers reliably through winter and early spring; tolerates shade and exposed positions; extremely hardy and undemanding; useful for covering walls, fences, and banks

Wildlife attraction: bees and other early-emerging pollinating insects, providing a valuable nectar source during the winter months when little else is in flower

Height & spread (approx.) at 10 years: 3m x 3m (wall-trained)

Position: full sun to full shade; one of the most shade-tolerant flowering wall shrubs available; excellent on north- and east-facing walls

Soil pH: adaptable to most soil types including chalk; pH 6.0–8.0

Moisture: low to moderate; very drought tolerant once established; grows in most soil conditions including poor soils

Winter hardiness: very cold hardy to approximately -15°C; fully reliable across the UK