Perfectly emblematic of the year that is 2020, these are about the only blooms that the mockorange clumps produced this season – a sad, sorry, and lamentable situation, especially considering we once had four strong and healthy shrubs that towered up to and over the roof of the house. When we first moved in almost twenty years ago, I planted two little mockorange plants. I didn’t know then the house already had two clumps of it – so neglected and forgotten had they been. I noticed their leaves as the season progressed, and gave them a healthy dose of manure. The next year those old plants came back strong, blooming and filling the yard with their sweet perfume. One was a double version of the traditional mockorange, and the other was the typical single version. Both were equally glorious in fragrance. The two new specimens took a few years to bloom, but once they began they too filled June with their delicious scent.
Unfortunately, as lovely as the scent is, the blooming period is criminally short, and the shrubs themselves tend to revert to a weedy form, with unremarkable foliage, and a thicket of half-dead stems after a few years. It seemed they ran out of steam, as did my enthusiasm for them. But now, absent their big blooming explosion of perfume, I regret not working a little harder on their care.
