The air around my place is full of the heady scent of the Korean spice viburnum; it’s easily my favorite flowering shrub in the garden right now. This well-behaved shrub has so much to offer, in addition to its beautiful scent.

The three-inch flower clusters are a delicate whitish-pink in color, and they cover it from top to bottom. The shrub itself does not seem to require fussy pruning or be prone to significant sucker growth. Mine is growing in full sun, in well-drained soil, but I’ve read that it will also do well in partial shade and moist conditions.

The Korean spice viburnum asks little and gives a lot.

Like most spring flowering shrubs, the flowers won’t last for long. Soon, they will develop into reddish berries, which will darken later in the season to almost black (but the birds will eat them first). In the fall, it will show off beautiful red and orange foliage, bringing color to the perennial border as it goes dormant.

The Korean spice viburnum’s best attribute, without a doubt, is its scent. I worked much of this weekend in parts of the front yard, either nearby in the perennial border, or across the way in the kitchen garden. Wherever I was, I enjoyed the soft scent of its blooms in the air.

Being a gardener who, historically, hasn’t enjoyed working in the front yard, it’s been a nice reward for my efforts.