If you grow box in your garden and it’s succumbed to box blight – making it look sick, bare and unhealthy here is a fantastic alternative.

Enjoy Sarcococca confusa, the sweet box plant. This perennial highly-scented shrub gives you attractive glossy leaves all year round on tidy compact plants that make fantastic hedges.

In winter you’ll be struck by the heavenly scent emitted by the flowers of this variety. It is great grown as a hedge of singly in containers as a scented centrepiece surrounded by winter-flowering irises or winter-flowering pansies.

How your winter-flowering Sarcococca confusa plant arrives

In a 3.5 litre pot – perfect to plant in soil in spring

These plants arrive in a pot within a box to keep the plant sturdy and upright. The soil area may be covered in sacking or polythene to keep the soil moist which is ideal for the roots.

On arrival lift the plant gently out of the pot to check there are lots of roots showing on the sides of the soil.

Can’t plant straight away?

If you can't plant up your plant straight away, remove the sacking or polythene, and keep your potted plant in a sunny position. Keep the soil moist by watering each day. Look to planting into its permanent position within 5-7 days.