We are almost midway through November, the month I find extremely depressing. However, the mild weather at the beginning of the month provided pleasant lulls between the rain-laden and gusty south-westerly winds. Consequently, plants in my garden are lingering on, harking back to summer gone.

I have an unseasonal show of pinks and occasionally I catch the wafting clove scent usually associated with a June evening, a slightly surreal sensation in November. The most prolific of all is Gran’s Favourite (1966), a semi-double pale-pink prettily laced in bright-pink. This has the longest flowering season of any pink, together with a strong constitution that seems to make it live longer than many other variety.

‘Purple Jenny’ (1994) is another November sparkler, but this produces just one or two purple blooms on floppy stems. The very fragrant ‘Brympton Red’ has also had a late flourish and this scarlet-red pink is one of the brightest. It was named by Margery Fish after a garden at Brympton D’Evercy, but found at the workhouse in Beaminster, Dorset in the 1960s. Scent seems to penetrate the November air as if somehow trying to compensate for the lacklustre appearance of the garden. The pink-flowered viburnum (V. x bodnantense ‘Dawn’) produces its best scent now, like hyacinths opening their buds in a warm, steamy kitchen. It almost overpowers you, but this large upright shrub can be planted on a garden boundary and still make an impact on your nose. Waterperry Gardens propagate a very good form.

The Asian mahonias are also at their best now, their jagged shiny green leaves framing long racemes of yellow flowers. The beauty of these hybrids is their ability to flourish and flower well in shady conditions.

The finest mahonia is often considered to be M. lomariifolia, a species from Yunnan in southwest China. It was introduced to Britain in 1931 by Lawrence Johnson, the owner of Hidcote Manor in Gloucestershire. It has an open habit and long leaves consisting of up to 20 pairs of toothed, bright green leaflets. The clusters of long, rich yellow flower spikes appear in mid-autumn through to midwinter, like a giant mimosa. His original plant still flourishes at Hidcote in a very sheltered position. However most of us would fail to keep this lovely shrub in bad winters.

Nursery owners and breeders used it to breed a series of hardy hybrids under the name Mahonia x media. ‘Charity’ is the most widely available, but I love ‘Winter Sun’ most of all. Its upright habit and long upward racemes of pallid- yellow flowers are so much gentler on the eye.

Mahonia x media ‘Lionel Fortescue’ is similar, but the flowers are a brasher yellow. Tucked underneath are some autumn-flowering snowdrops, Galanthus reginae-olgae, and these are a delight if you can prevent the slugs from cropping the flowers!